also; at any rate, he had never seen any of them, or heard her or his father speak of them. Discounting Marmaduke's natural bitterness, she was plainly a horrible creature—she was gluttonous, she often drank too much, she was empurpled and obese. There could not be the slightest doubt that common humanity demanded her instant removal.
I learned, too, that she never stirred out of the manor house into the grounds—some six acres of garden and shrubberies—without a pack of half a dozen yapping small dogs. The village boasted a really comfortable inn, kept by a retired butler who had been for many years in Marmaduke's father's service. It would make admirable headquarters for any one reconnoitring the ground for the operations of the G. P. R. C.
At the last moment it occurred to me that this might prove the proper occasion to use my suffocating machine; and I asked Marmaduke if he had any of his stepmother's letters. Fortunately, he had half a dozen of them, and then and there took them from the little trunk which held the scanty clothes of his family.
Angel and Mrs. Jubb came back to us, for it was time to be starting to Euston. I fancied that they had both been crying over the tale of her late privations. We drove with them to the station; I took their tickets; we put them in their
