AN UNNATURAL MOTHER Next morning a rumor set out from three distinct centers, Thorneytoft, Meriden, and "The Cross-Roads," to the effect that Tyson had quarreled seriously with Stanistreet.

His wife, as might be imagined, was the cause.

After a hot dispute, in which her name had been rather freely bandied about, it seems that Tyson had picked the Captain up by the scruff of the neck and tumbled him out of the house.
By the evening the scandal was blazing like a fire.
Mrs.Nevill Tyson was undoubtedly a benefactor to her small public.

She had roused the intelligence of Drayton Parva as it had never been roused before.

Conjecture followed furtively on her footsteps, and inference met her and stared her in the face.