TWENTY-NINEIt was just before half past three that Mrs. Crook ushered the Chief Constable into Mrs. Voycey’s drawing-room. Miss Silver rose to meet him with a good deal of pleasure. She could not even now look at the tall, personable man without recalling the frail, determined little boy who, after resisting all previous efforts at discipline, had by her own peculiar mixture of tact and firmness been guided into the paths of health and knowledge. She had never permitted herself to have favourites. It was perhaps on this account that, whilst referring to his sisters as ‘Dear Isabel’ and ‘Dear Margaret,’ she had never been known to accord their brother any such prefix. Not even to herself would she admit that the conflict between them, and its happy termination, had given him a particular pl
