But, according to the housekeeper, Captain Hall was out of his troubles and had gone where he would be happy for ever and ever.

So it seemed to her strange to be expected to cry on his account.

He had not been happy here in Ostable, or, at least, he had not shown his happiness in the way other people showed theirs.

To her he had been a big, bearded giant of a man, whom she saw at infrequent intervals during the day and always at night just before she went to bed.

His room, with the old-fashioned secretary against the wall, and the stuffed gull on the shelf, and the books in the cupboard, and the polished narwhal horn in the corner, was to her a sort of holy of holies, a place where she was led each evening at nine o'clock, at first by Mrs.Bailey and, later, by Mrs.Hobbs, to shake the hand of the big man who looked at her absently over his spectacles and said good night in a voice not unkindly but expressing no particular interest.