Unlike Miss Mattie, she had not seen anybody; and Miss Mattie, questioned by Jim, was completely vague.

“It was just a man, standing by a car,” she said.

We were having a breathing space at least, those October days. Maud was stronger, Bessie was planning to go away, the local excitement was dying down, and the weather was fine. I rode a great deal, generally hatless, with Prince’s feet rustling among the leaves on the trail and Roger loving the long upgrades where horse and dog could gallop. One day Nan Osgood called up from the village to say the dramatic club was going to give Lady Windermere’s Fan, and would I help them out.

“I’ll be the fan,” I said cheerfully. “Otherwise I’m afraid it’s out, Nan. I’m having a little time now, but it won’t last.”

Nor did it. It was, I think, the next day that Maud sent for me. She was alone except for Hilda, Amy being off for a nap, and she sent Hilda away without ceremony. I had brought my notebook and pencil, but she waved them aside.

“I want to talk to you,” she said. “There are some arrangements I ought to make. I’m better. I’ll probably live to be a horrible old woman. But just in case—”

What she wanted to tell me was about the contents of her wall safe. Not only her jewels. A good many of them were in the bank anyhow. She kept only what she usually wore. They were all listed, and Tony would have to pay a huge inheritance tax on both lots. But there was an envelope in the safe. If anything happened to her, she wanted me to get it “before the appraisers step in, or whatever they are.”

“Get it and give it to Tony,” she said. “Don’t let anybody else touch it. There are some papers in it, and a letter for him. I don’t want it read by anybody else. I wish you’d open the safe now. And lock the door first.”

She read off the combination after I had opened the panel, and asked me to make a note of it. Then I opened the safe and gave her the envelope, a large brown manila one. She sat for some time with it in her hands. Then she drew a long breath and gave it back to me.

“For Tony,” she said. “He will understand.”

After that she decided to look over her jewels, and I laid out on a table beside her the cases containing those extravagant ornaments of hers. She checked them and I made a list, but she handled them indifferently, with a strange remote look on her face. I suppose they were worth half a million dollars as they lay there.

She was tired after that. She lay back in her chair with her eyes closed, and I realized more than ever how greatly she had changed. Her big hearty laugh had gone, her zest, even the sheen from her lovely hair.