Solution Manual for Contemporary Auditing Real Issues and Cases 8th Edition by Knapp

Find the Best Study Materials and Full Test Bank downloads at testbankbell.com
Solution Manual for Contemporary Auditing Real
Issues and Cases 8th Edition by Knapp
http://testbankbell.com/product/solution-manual-for-
contemporary-auditing-real-issues-and-cases-8th-edition-by-
knapp/
OR CLICK HERE
DOWLOAD NOW
Explore extensive Test Banks for all subjects on testbankbell.com

Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) ready for you
Download now and discover formats that fit your needs...
Start reading on any device today!
Contemporary Auditing Knapp 9th Edition Solutions Manual
https://testbankbell.com/product/contemporary-auditing-knapp-9th-
edition-solutions-manual/
testbankbell.com
Contemporary Auditing 11th Edition Knapp Solutions Manual
https://testbankbell.com/product/contemporary-auditing-11th-edition-
knapp-solutions-manual/
testbankbell.com
Solution Manual for Auditing and Accounting Cases
Investigating Issues of Fraud and Professional Ethics 3rd
Edition by Thibodeau
https://testbankbell.com/product/solution-manual-for-auditing-and-
accounting-cases-investigating-issues-of-fraud-and-professional-
ethics-3rd-edition-by-thibodeau/
testbankbell.com
Solution Manual for Ethics Theory and Contemporary Issues,
Concise Edition, 8th Edition
https://testbankbell.com/product/solution-manual-for-ethics-theory-
and-contemporary-issues-concise-edition-8th-edition/
testbankbell.com

Solution Manual for Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues
9th Edition MacKinnon
https://testbankbell.com/product/solution-manual-for-ethics-theory-
and-contemporary-issues-9th-edition-mackinnon/
testbankbell.com
Test Bank for Ethics Theory and Contemporary Issues,
Concise Edition, 8th Edition
https://testbankbell.com/product/test-bank-for-ethics-theory-and-
contemporary-issues-concise-edition-8th-edition/
testbankbell.com
Solution Manual for Psychological Testing Principles,
Applications, and Issues, 8th Edition
https://testbankbell.com/product/solution-manual-for-psychological-
testing-principles-applications-and-issues-8th-edition/
testbankbell.com
Solution Manual for Organizational Behavior Science, The
Real World, and You, 8th Edition
https://testbankbell.com/product/solution-manual-for-organizational-
behavior-science-the-real-world-and-you-8th-edition/
testbankbell.com
Solution Manual for Issues and Ethics in the Helping
Professions, 8th Edition
https://testbankbell.com/product/solution-manual-for-issues-and-
ethics-in-the-helping-professions-8th-edition/
testbankbell.com

Solution Manual for Contemporary Auditing
Real Issues and Cases 8th Edition by Knapp
Full download chapter at: https://testbankbell.com/product/solution-
manual-for-contemporary-auditing-real-issues-and-cases-8th-edition-by-
knapp/
CASE 1.1
ENRON CORPORATION
Synopsis
Arthur Edward Andersen built his firm, Arthur Andersen & Company, into one of the
largest and most respected accounting firms in the world through his reputation for honesty and
integrity. “Think straight, talk straight” was his motto and he insisted that his clients adopt that
same attitude when preparing and issuing their periodic financial statements. Arthur Andersen’s
auditing philosophy was not rule-based, that is, he did not stress the importance of clients
complying with specific accounting rules because in the early days of the U.S. accounting
profession there were few formal rules and guidelines for accountants and auditors to follow.
Instead, Andersen invoked a substance-over-form approach to auditing and accounting issues. He
passionately believed that the primary role of the auditor was to ensure that clients reported fully
and honestly to the public, regardless of the consequences for those clients.
Ironically, Arthur Andersen & Co.’s dramatic fall from prominence resulted from its
association with a client known for aggressive and innovative uses of “accounting gimmicks” to
window dress its financial statements. Enron Corporation, Andersen’s second largest client, was
involved in large, complex transactions with hundreds of special purpose entities (SPEs) that it
used to obscure its true financial condition and operating results. Among other uses, these SPEs
allowed Enron to download underperforming assets from its balance sheet and to conceal large
operating losses. During 2001, a series of circumstances, including a sharp decline in the price of
Enron’s stock, forced the company to assume control and ownership of many of its troubled SPEs.
As a result, Enron was forced to report a large loss in October 2001, restate its earnings for the
previous five years, and, ultimately, file for bankruptcy in December 2001.
During the early months of 2002, Andersen became the focal point of attention among law
enforcement authorities searching for the parties responsible for Enron’s sudden collapse. The
accusations directed at Andersen centered on three key issues. The first issue had to do with the

2 Case 1.1 Enron Corporation
scope of professional services that Andersen provided to Enron. Critics charged that the enormous
consulting fees Enron paid Andersen impaired the audit firm’s independence. The second issue
stemmed from Andersen’s alleged role in Enron’s aggressive accounting and financial reporting
treatments for its SPE-related transactions. Finally, the most embarrassing issue was the massive
effort of Andersen’s Houston office to shred Enron audit documents, which eventually led to the
demise of the firm.

Case 1.1 Enron Corporation 3
Enron Corporation—Key Facts
1. Throughout Arthur E. Andersen’s life, “Think straight, talk straight” served as a guiding
principle for himself and Arthur Andersen & Co., the accounting firm that he founded.
2. Arthur Andersen’s reputation for honesty and integrity resulted in Arthur Andersen & Co.
gaining stature in the business community and growing into one of the nation’s leading accounting
firms by the time of his death in 1947.
3. Leonard Spacek succeeded Arthur Andersen as managing partner of Arthur Andersen & Co.
in 1947 and continued Andersen’s legacy of lobbying for more rigorous accounting, auditing, and
ethical standards for the public accounting profession.
4. When Spacek retired in 1973, Arthur Andersen & Co. was one of the largest and, arguably,
the most prominent accounting firm worldwide
5. The predecessor of Enron Corporation was an Omaha-based natural gas company created in
1930; steady growth in profits and sales and numerous acquisitions allowed Enron to become the
largest natural gas company in the United States by the mid-1980s.
6. During the 1990s, Kenneth Lay, Enron’s CEO, and his top subordinate, Jeffrey Skilling,
transformed the company from a conventional natural gas supplier into an energy trading
company.
7. Lay and Skilling placed a heavy emphasis on “strong earnings performance” and on increasing
Enron’s stature in the business world.
8. Enron executives used hundreds of SPEs (special purpose entities) to arrange large and
complex related party transactions that served to strengthen Enron’s reported financial condition
and operating results.
9. During 2001, Enron’s financial condition deteriorated rapidly after many of the company’s
SPE transactions unraveled; in December 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy.
10. Following Enron’s collapse, the business press and other critics began searching for parties to
hold responsible for what, at the time, was the nation’s largest corporate bankruptcy.
11. Criticism of Andersen’s role in the Enron debacle focused on three key issues: the large
amount of consulting revenue the firm earned from Enron, the firm’s role in many of Enron’s SPE
transactions, and the efforts of Andersen personnel to destroy Enron audit documents.
12. Andersen’s felony conviction in June 2002 effectively ended the firm’s long and proud history
in the public accounting profession.
Instructional Objectives

1. To provide students with a brief overview of the history and development of the public
accounting profession in the United States.
2. To examine the “scope of services” issue, that is, the threats to auditor independence posed
by audit firms providing consulting services to their audit clients.
3. To examine the extent to which independent auditors should be involved in their clients’
decisions regarding important accounting and financial reporting issues.
4. To review recent recommendations made to strengthen the independent audit function.
5. To review auditors’ responsibilities regarding the preparation and retention of audit
workpapers.
Suggestions for Use
I typically begin an auditing course by discussing a major and widely publicized audit case.
Clearly, the Enron case satisfies those criteria. The purpose of presenting such a case early in the
semester is not only to acquaint students with the nature of auditing but also to make them aware
of why the independent audit function is so important. Many accounting students are not well
acquainted with the nature of the independent auditor’s work environment, nor are they generally
familiar with the critical role the independent audit function plays in our national economy.
Hopefully, cases such as this one provide students with a “reality jolt” that will stimulate their
interest in auditing and, possibly, make them more inclined to pursue a career in the auditing field.
The Enron case also serves as a good starting point for an auditing course since it provides
students with an overview of how the auditing profession developed and evolved in the United
States over the past century. The vehicle used to present this overview is the history of Arthur
Andersen & Co. You will find that the case attempts to contrast the “think straight, talk straight”
philosophy of Arthur E. Andersen, the founder of the Andersen firm, with the more business-
oriented approach to auditing that his predecessors adopted in the latter decades of the twentieth
century.
Consider asking one or more of your students to interview former Andersen personnel who
are graduates of your school. I have found that many former Andersen partners and employees
are more than willing to discuss their former employer and the series of events that led to the firm’s
sudden collapse. These individuals typically suggest that federal prosecutors’ efforts to “bring
down” the entire Andersen firm as a result of the document-shredding incident was not only
unnecessary but also inequitable, an argument that many members of the accounting profession—
including academics—find hard to refute.
Suggested Solutions to Case Questions
1. A large number of parties bear some degree of direct or indirect responsibility for the problems
that the Enron fiasco ultimately posed for the public accounting profession and the independent
audit function. The following bullet items identify several of these parties [see bold-facing] and
the role they played in the Enron drama.

•The leadership of the Andersen firm that allegedly focused too much attention on practice
development activities at the expense of the public service ideal embraced by Arthur E. Andersen
and other early leaders of the profession.
•Impertinent corporate executives who insisted on aggressive, if not illegal, accounting and
financial reporting treatments.
•Individual auditors who made shortsighted and/or unprofessional decisions that tainted the
perceived integrity of all auditors.
•Regulatory authorities that failed to take proactive measures to limit the ability of rogue
corporate executives, accountants, and auditors to circumvent their professional responsibilities.
•Academics who failed to goad their students into internalizing the accounting profession’s high
ethical principles.
2. One approach to answering this question is to review with your students the eight specific
types of non-audit services that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 prohibited auditors of public
companies from providing to their clients. Listed next are those eight non-audit services.
•Bookkeeping or other services related to the accounting records or financial statements of
the audit client
•Financial information systems design and implementation
•Appraisal or valuation services, fairness opinions, or contribution-in-kind reports
•Actuarial services
•Internal audit outsourcing services
•Management functions or human resources functions
•Broker or dealer, investment adviser, or investment banking services
•Legal services and expert services unrelated to the audit
Many of these services would eventually place auditors in situations in which they had to
effectively audit their own work. For example, auditors providing “financial information systems
design services” could be forced to evaluate the integrity of an accounting system they had
designed for an audit client.
Providing “human resources” functions, such as executive search services, to audit clients
could threaten auditors’ independence by causing them to evaluate the work product of high-
ranking client employees who they had recommended that a client hire.
An audit firm that provided some type of “expert service unrelated to the audit” could find
itself in a dicey situation if the given service proved to be less than expert quality. For example,
if an audit firm recommended to a client a strategy for dealing with a labor strike or other work
stoppage and that strategy proved ineffective, client executives would potentially have some
degree of leverage to extract concessions from the audit firm during subsequent audit
engagements.
3. Given the assumption that the Powers Report excerpts included in Exhibit 3 are accurate, one
could plausibly argue that Arthur Andersen violated several of the ten generally accepted auditing
standards, including the following:
•Independence (second general standard): by becoming too involved in Enron’s decisions for
important accounting and financial reporting treatments, the Arthur Andersen auditors may have
forfeited some degree of objectivity when they reviewed those decisions during the course of
subsequent audits.

•Due professional care (third general standard): any violation of one of the other nine GAAS
effectively results in a violation of the catchall due professional care standard.
•Planning and supervision (first fieldwork standard): a reliable quality control function,
including proper audit planning decisions and effective supervision/review during an audit, should
result in the identification of problematic situations in which auditors have become too involved
in client accounting and financial reporting decisions.
•Internal control evaluation (second fieldwork standard): one could argue that given the
critical and seemingly apparent defects in Enron’s internal controls, Andersen auditors failed to
gain a “sufficient understanding” of the client’s internal control system.
•Sufficient competent evidential matter (third fieldwork standard—under the current third
fieldwork standard the auditor must obtain “sufficient appropriate” audit evidence): many critics
suggest that Andersen’s deep involvement in Enron’s aggressive accounting and financial
reporting treatments may have precluded the firm from collecting sufficient competent evidence
to support the audit opinions issued on the company’s financial statements (that is, the Andersen
auditors may have been less than objective in reviewing/corroborating the client’s aggressive
accounting and financial reporting treatments).
•Reporting (fourth reporting standard): If Andersen did not maintain its independence and
objectivity while auditing Enron, the audit firm should have issued a disclaimer of opinion on the
company’s periodic financial statements.
4. Note: The PCAOB has established the documentation requirements for the audits of publicly
owned companies in PCAOB Auditing Standard No. 3, “Audit Documentation.” The
documentation requirements that pertain to audits of other organizations can be found in Statement
on Auditing Standards No. 103, “Audit Documentation,” that became effective for audits of
financial statements for periods ending on or after December 15, 2006.
SAS No. 103:
This standard has been integrated into AU Section 339. Paragraph .03 of AU 339 provides
the following general guidance to independent auditors.
“The auditor must prepare audit documentation in connection with each engagement in
sufficient detail to provide a clear understanding of the work performed (including the nature,
timing, extent, and results of audit procedures performed), the audit evidence obtained and its
source, and the conclusions reached. Audit documentation:
a. Provides the principal support for the representation in the auditor’s report that the
auditor performed the audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing
standards.
b. Provides the principal support for the opinion expressed regarding the financial
information or the assertion to the effect that an opinion cannot be expressed.”
Paragraph .32 of AU 339 notes that the “auditor should adopt reasonable procedures to retain
and access audit documentation for a period of time sufficient to meet the needs of his or her
practice and to satisfy any applicable legal or regulatory requirements for records retention.”
This paragraph goes on to note that the retention period for audit documentation “should not
be shorter than five years from the report release date.”

PCAOB No. 3:
This standard defines audit documentation as “the written record of the basis for the auditor’s
conclusions that provides the support for the auditor’s representations, whether those
representations are contained in the auditor’s report or otherwise” (para. .02). “Examples of audit
documentation include memoranda, confirmations, correspondence, schedules, audit programs,
and letters of representation. Audit documentation may be in the form of paper, electronic files,
or other media” (para. .04).
PCAOB No. 3 notes that there are three key objectives of audit documentation: “demonstrate
that the engagement complied with the standards of the PCAOB, support the basis for the auditor’s
conclusions concerning every major relevant financial statement assertion, and demonstrate that
the underlying accounting records agreed or reconciled with the financial statements” (para. .05).
This standard establishes an explicit benchmark that auditors can use to determine whether
audit documentation is “sufficient.” “Audit documentation must contain sufficient information to
enable an experienced auditor, having no previous connection with the engagement to: a)
understand the nature, timing, extent, and results of the procedures performed, evidence obtained,
and conclusions reached, and b) determine who performed the work and the date such work was
completed as well as the person who reviewed the work and the date of such review” (para. .06).
[Note: SAS No. 103 has a similar requirement—see AU 339.10.] PCAOB No. 3 generally
requires auditors to retain audit documentation for seven years from the date the auditor gave the
client permission to use the relevant audit report in connection with the issuance of a set of
financial statements.
Regardless of whether an audit client is a publicly owned company or another type of
organization, the audit workpapers are the property of the audit firm.
5. During and following the Enron debacle, wide-ranging recommendations were made by many
parties to strengthen the independent audit function. Listed next are several of these
recommendations, including certain measures that were incorporated in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
of 2002.
•Establish an independent audit agency. Some critics have suggested that to “cure” the
paradoxical nature of the auditor-client relationship (that is, to eliminate the economic leverage
that clients have on their auditors), the independent audit function should be performed by a
government agency comparable to the Internal Revenue Service.
•Permit audit firms to provide only audit, reviews, compilations, and other “pure” attestation
services to their clients, that is, prohibit the provision of all non-audit services to audit clients. (As
mentioned in the suggested solution to Question 2, Sarbanes-Oxley prohibits audit firms from
providing eight specific consulting services to their audit clients.)
•Require that audit clients periodically rotate or change their independent audit firms.
(Sarbanes-Oxley requires that engagement and review partners be rotated every five years on audit
engagements involving public companies.)
•Establish an independent board to oversee the audits of public companies. (Sarbanes-Oxley
resulted in the creation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board “to oversee the audit
of public companies that are subject to the securities laws . . .”)
•Require independent auditors to work more closely with their clients’ audit committees.
(Section 204 of Sarbanes-Oxley is entitled “Auditor Reports to Audit Committees” and delineates
the information that auditors should exchange with a client’s audit committee, including any
alternative accounting treatments “preferred” by the auditors.)
•Establish more explicit statutory requirements that prohibit client executives from interfering
with the work of their independent auditors. (Section 303 of Sarbanes-Oxley is entitled “Improper

Influence on Conduct of Audits.” This section of the federal law makes it unlawful for corporate
executives “to fraudulently influence, coerce, manipulate, or mislead” their company’s
independent auditors.”)
6. Many critics of our profession suggest that beginning in the latter part of the twentieth century
certain accounting firms gradually turned away from the public service ideal embraced by Arthur
E. Andersen and other early pioneers within the profession and, instead, adopted a somewhat
mercenary attitude toward the independent audit function. A key factor that certainly accelerated
this trend was the profession’s decision in the 1970s, with the goading of the Federal Trade
Commission and the courts, to drop bans on competitive bidding, client solicitation, and other
ethical rules that effectively restrained competition among audit firms. The elimination of those
rules enticed audit firms to begin competing against each other for the finite number of large
corporate audits. Practices such as “lowballing” to gain such clients allegedly resulted in audit
firms “cutting corners” on audits. Likewise, audit firms began vigorously marketing non-audit
services to supplement their suddenly low-margin audit services.
A related factor that allegedly contributed to the move away from the public service ideal was
the growing tendency for large audit firms to consider strong marketing skills, as opposed to strong
technical skills, as the key criterion in determining which individuals would be promoted to
partner. Finally, pure and simple greed is a factor that motivates most of us. The large and lucrative
market for business consulting services over the past few decades may have enticed audit firms to
focus more on becoming “strategic business advisers” to their clients rather than placing an
unrelenting emphasis on the quality of their audits of those clients’ financial statements.
7. In the spring of 2000, the SEC began requiring public companies to have their quarterly
financial reports (typically included in Form 10-Q filings) reviewed by their independent auditors.
(Note: AU Section 722, “Interim Financial Information,” provides guidance to auditors on the
“nature, timing, and extent of procedures to be applied” to a client’s interim financial information.)
Should quarterly reports be audited? In fact, many parties have advocated an even more
extreme measure, namely, that independent auditors continually monitor and report on the integrity
of their clients’ financial disclosures. In the current environment when information is distributed
so readily and widely to millions of investors and other decision makers, the validity or utility of
independent audits that focus on discrete time periods has been challenged. As recent history has
proven, by the time that auditors issue their reports on a client’s financial statements for some
discrete period, the “horse may already be out of the barn”—the “horse” in this case being the
damage to investors and other parties resulting from oversights and other misrepresentations in the
given financial statements. This problem could be cured, or, at least, mitigated to some extent, by
requiring auditors to provide real-time disclosures of potential problems in their clients’ financial
records.

Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:

CHAPTER XIII
MORE OF THE ITINERANT OPTIMIST; ALICE DU CANE
ASKS MARADICK A FAVOUR
Maradick awoke very early on the next morning. As he lay in his
bed, his mind was still covered with the cobwebs of his dreams, and
he saw the room in a fantastic, grotesque shape, so that he was not
sure that it was his room at all, but he thought that it might be some
sea with the tables and chairs for rocks, or some bare windy moor.
The curtain blew ever so slightly in the wind from the crevice of
the door, and he watched it from his bed as it swelled and bulged
and shrunk back as though it were longing to break away from the
door altogether but had not quite courage enough. But although he
was still confused and vague with the lazy bewilderment of sleep, he
realised quite definitely in the back of his mind that there was some
fact waiting for him until he should be clear-headed enough to
recognise it. This certainty of something definite before him that had
to be met and considered roused him. He did not, in the least, know
what that something was that awaited him, but he tried to pull
himself together. The sea receded, the beating of its waves was very
faint in his ears, and the rocks resolved into the shining glass of the
dressing-table and the solemn chairs with their backs set resolutely
against the wall, and their expressions those of self-conscious virtue.
He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes; he knew with absolute
certainty that he should not sleep again. The light was trying to
pierce the blind and little eyes of colour winked at him from the
window, the silver things on the dressing-table stood out, pools of
white, against the dark wood.
He got out of bed, and suddenly the fact stared him in the face:
it was that he was committed, irrevocably committed, to help Tony.
He had, in a way, been committed before, ever since Lady Gale
asked him for his help; but there had always been a chance of
escaping, the possibility, indeed, of the “thing” never coming off at

all. But now it was coming off, and very soon, and he had to help it
to come.
He had turned the whole situation over in his mind so very often,
and looked at it from so very many points of view, with its
absurdities and its tragedies and its moralities, that there was
nothing more to be said about the actual thing at all; that was, in all
conscience, concrete enough. He saw it, as he sat on the bed
swinging his feet, there in front of him, as some actual personality
with whom he had pledged himself in league. He had sworn to help
two children to elope against everybody’s wishes—he, Maradick, of
all people the most law-abiding. What had come over him? However,
there it was and there was nothing more to be said about it. It
wasn’t to be looked at again at all with any view of its possible
difficulties and dangers, it had just to be carried through.
But he knew, as he thought about it, that the issue was really
much larger than the actual elopement. It was the effect on him that
really mattered, the fact that he could never return to Epsom again
with any hope of being able to live the life there that he had lived
before.
The whole circle of them would be changed by this; it was the
most momentous event in all their lives.
Maradick looked again at the morning. The mists were rising
higher in the air, and all the colours, the pale golden sand, the red
roofs, the brown bend of the rocks, were gleaming in the sun. He
would go and bathe and then search out Punch.
It was a quarter past five as he passed down the stairs; the
house was in the most perfect stillness, and only the ticking of
innumerable clocks broke the silence. Suddenly a bird called from
the garden; a little breath of wind, bringing with it the scent of pinks
and roses, trembled through the hall.
When he reached the cove the sea was like glass. He had never
bathed early in the morning before, and a few weeks ago he would
have laughed at the idea. A man of his age bathing at half-past five
in the morning! The water would be terribly cold. But it wasn’t. He
thought that he had never known anything so warm and caressing
as he lay back in it and looked up through the clear green. There

was perfect silence. Things came into his mind, some operas that he
had heard, rather reluctantly, that year in London. The opening of
the third act of Puccini’s “Tosca,” with the bell-music and the light
breaking over the city. He remembered that he had thought that
rather fine at the time. The lovers in “Louise” on Montmartre
watching the lights burst the flowers below them and saluting
“Paris!” He had appreciated that too. A scene in “To Paradise,” with a
man somewhere alone in a strange city watching the people
hurrying past him and counting the lamps that swung, a golden
chain, down the street. Some picture in the Academy of that year,
Sim’s “Night Piece to Julia.” He hadn’t understood it or seen anything
in it at the time. “One of those new fellows who just stick the paint
on anyhow,” he had remarked; but now he seemed to remember a
wonderful blue dress and a white peacock in the background!
How funny it was, he thought, as he plunged, dripping, back on
to the beach, that the things that a fellow scarcely noticed at all at
the time should be just the things that came into his mind
afterwards. And on the sand he saw Toby, the dog, gravely watching
him. Toby came courteously towards him, sniffed delicately at his
socks, and then, having decided apparently that they were the right
kind of socks and couldn’t really be improved on, sat down with his
head against Maradick’s leg.
Maradick tickled his head and decided that pugs weren’t nearly
so ugly as he had thought they were. But then there was a world of
difference between Toby and the ordinary pug, the fat pug nestling
in cushions on an old lady’s lap, the aristocratic pug staring haughtily
from the soft luxury of a lordly brougham, the town pug, over-fed,
over-dressed, over-washed. But Toby knew the road, he had seen
the world, he was a dog of the drama, a dog of romance; he was
also a dog with a sense of humour.
He licked Maradick’s bare leg with a very warm tongue and then
put a paw on to his arm. They were friends. He ratified the contract
by rolling over several times on the sand; he then lay on his back
with his four paws suspended rigidly in the air, and then, catching
sight of his master, turned rapidly over and went to meet him.

Punch expressed no surprise at finding Maradick there at that
hour of the morning. It was the most natural thing in the world.
People who came to Treliss were always doing things like that, and
they generally spent the rest of their lives in trying to forget that
they had done them.
“I’ve been wanting to see you, Mr. Maradick, sir,” he said, “and
I’m mighty glad to find you here when there’s nothing to catch our
words save the sea, and that never tells tales.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, Garrick,” said Maradick, “I came down
after you. I meant to have gone up to your rooms after bathing, but
as you are here it’s all the better. I badly want to talk to you.”
Punch sat down on the sand and looked quite absurdly like his
dog.
“I want to talk to you about Morelli, Garrick.” Maradick hesitated
a moment. It was very difficult to put into words exactly what he
wanted to say. “We have talked about the man before, and I
shouldn’t bother you about it again were it not that I’m very fond of
young Tony Gale, and he, as you know, has fallen in love with
Morelli’s daughter. It’s all a long story, but the main point is, that I
want to know as much about the man as you can tell me. Nobody
here seems to know very much about him except yourself.”
Punch’s brow had clouded at the mention of Morelli’s name.
“I don’t rightly know,” he said, “as I can say anything very
definite, and that being so perhaps one oughtn’t to say anything at
all; but if young Gale’s going to take that girl away, then I’m glad.
He’s a good fellow, and she’s on my mind.”
“Why?” said Maradick.
“Well, perhaps after all it’s best to tell what I know.” Punch took
out a pipe and slowly filled it. “Mind you, it’s all damned uncertain, a
lot of little things that don’t mean anything when taken by
themselves. I first met the man in ’89, twenty years ago. I was a
young chap, twenty-one or so. A kind of travelling blacksmith I used
to be then, with Pendragon up the coast as a kind o’ centre. It was
at Pendragon I saw him. He used to live there then as he lives in
Treliss now; it was a very different kind o’ place then to what it is
now—just a sleepy, dreamy little town, with bad lights, bad roads

and the rest, and old tumbled down ’ouses. Old Sir Jeremy Trojan
’ad the run of it then, him that’s father of the present Sir Henry, and
you wouldn’t have found a quieter place, or a wilder in some ways.”
“Wild?” said Maradick. “It’s anything but wild now.”
“Yes, they’ve changed it with their trams and things, and they’ve
pulled down the cove; but the fisher-folk were a fierce lot and they
wouldn’t stand anyone from outside. Morelli lived there with his wife
and little girl. ’Is wife was only a young thing, but beautiful, with
great eyes like the sea on a blue day and with some foreign blood in
’er, dark and pale.
“’E wasn’t liked there any more than ’e is here. They told funny
tales about him even then, and said ’e did things to his wife, they
used to hear her crying. And they said that ’e’d always been there,
years back, just the same, never looking any different, and it’s true
enough he looks just the same now as he did then. It isn’t natural
for a man never to grow any older.”
“No,” said Maradick, “it isn’t.”
“There were other things that the men down there didn’t like
about ’im, and the women hated ’im. But whenever you saw ’im he
was charming—nice as ’e could be to me and all of ’em. And he was
clever, could do things with his ’ands, and make birds and beasts do
anything at all.”
“That’s strange,” said Maradick. “Tony said something of the
same sort the other day.”
“Well, that ain’t canny,” said David, “more especially as I’ve seen
other animals simply shake with fear when he comes near them.
Well, I was telling you, they didn’t like ’im down in the cove, and
they’d say nothing to ’im and leave ’im alone. And then one night”—
Punch’s mouth grew set and hard—“they found Mrs. Morelli up on
the moor lying by the Four Stones, dead.”
“Dead!” said Maradick, startled.
“Yes; it was winter time and the snow blowing in great sheets
across the moor and drifting about her dress, with the moon, like a
yellow candle, hanging over ’er. But that weren’t all. She’d been
killed, murdered. There were marks on her face and hands, as
though teeth had torn her. Poor creature!” Punch paused.

“Well,” said Maradick excitedly, “what was the end of it all?”
“Oh! they never brought it ’ome to anyone. I ’ad my own
thoughts, and the men about there kind o’ talked about Morelli, but
it was proved ’e was somewhere else when it ’appened and ’e cried
like a child when ’e saw the body.”
“Well,” said Maradick, laughing, “so far it isn’t very definite. That
might have happened to any man.” But it was, nevertheless,
curiously in keeping with the picture that he had in his mind.
“Yes,” said Punch, “I told you already that I ’adn’t got anything
very definite. I don’t say as ’e did it or had anything to do with it,
but it’s all of a piece in a way. Thing got ’ot against ’im in Pendragon
after that and ’e ’ad to go, and ’e came ’ere with ’is girl. But they say
that ’e’s been seen there since, and in other places too. And then
I’ve seen ’im do other things. Kill rabbits and birds like a devil. ’E’s
cruel, and then again ’e’s kind, just like a child will pull flies to bits.
’E is just like a child, and so ’e isn’t to be trusted. ’E’s wild, like
Nature. ’E likes to have young things about ’im. That’s why ’e’s taken
to young Gale, and ’e loves that girl in a way, although I know ’e’s
cruel——”
“Cruel to her?” said Maradick.
“Yes, ’e beats her, I know. I’ve been watching a long way back;
and then again ’e’ll kiss ’er and give ’er things and play with ’er, and
then one day ’e’ll kill ’er.”
Maradick started again. “Kill her?” he said.
“Yes. ’E’ll do anything when ’e’s mad. And a minute after ’e’ll be
sobbing and crying for sorrow over what ’e’s hurt; and be like a
drunkard when ’e’s angry.”
“Then what do you make of it all?” said Maradick.
“Make of it?” said Punch. “I don’t know. There ain’t another like
’im in the kingdom. There’s more in the world than folk ’ave any idea
of, especially those that keep to towns. But it’s out on the road that
you’ll be seeing things, when the moon is up and the hedges purple
in their shadows. And ’e belongs to all of that. ’E’s like Nature in a
way, cruel and kind and wild. ’E’s not to be believed in by sober folks
who laugh at spirits, but there’s more in it than meets the eye.”

And that was all that Maradick got from him; and after all it did
not amount to very much except a vague warning. But there was
this definite fact, that Janet was in danger where she was, and that
was an added impulse, of course, for going on with the whole
adventure. To the initial charm of helping a delightful boy was now
added the romantic sensation of the release of a captive lady;
Maradick, knight! Forty and married for a lifetime; oh! the absurd
world.
Then Maradick went up for breakfast.
Mrs. Maradick’s first thought in the morning was her hair, and
then, at some considerable distance, the girls. It never happened
that they were both “right” simultaneously, and she would indeed
have been considerably surprised and felt a certain lack if there had
been no cause for complaint on either score.
On the present morning everything was as it should be. Her hair
“settled itself” as though by magic, the girls had given no possible
cause of complaint; she came down to breakfast with an air of
surprise and the kind of mind that is quite sure something
unpleasant is going to happen simply because nothing unpleasant
has “happened” so far. She presented, as she came down the hotel
staircase, a delightful picture of neat compact charm; her girls, in
precise and maidenly attendance behind her, accentuated her short
stature by their own rather raw, long-legged size, but there was
nothing loose or uncouth about her. In her colouring, in her light
carnation silk waistband, in her high-heeled shiny shoes, she was
neatness personified.
In the eyes of everyone except Mrs. Lawrence she had perhaps
just a little too much the air of being “somebody,” because really, of
course, she was nothing at all, simply Mrs. Maradick of Epsom; but
then when you were so small you had to do something to make up
for it, and an “air” did help undoubtedly. Her husband, coming in
from the garden, met her at the bottom of the stairs, and she
treated him very graciously. He kissed the girls with a “Well, Lucy!”
and “Well, Annie!” and then Mrs. Maradick, with a final feeling for
her hair and a last pat to the carnation riband, led the way in to
breakfast.

It appeared that she was inclined to treat him graciously, but in
reality she was trying to make up her mind; she was not a clever
woman, and she had never been so puzzled before.
She had, indeed, never been forced to puzzle about anything at
all. In her orderly compact life things had always been presented to
her with a decency and certainty that left no room for question or
argument. She had been quiet and obedient at home, but she had
always had her way; she had married the man that had been
presented to her without any hesitation at all, it was a “good match,”
and it meant that, for the rest of her life, she would never be forced
to ask any questions about anything or anybody. For a wild week or
two, at first, she had felt strange undisciplined sensations that were
undoubtedly dangerous; on their wedding night she had suddenly
suspected that there was another woman there whose existence
meant storm and disorder. But the morning had come with bills and
calls and “finding a house,” and that other Mrs. Maradick had died.
From that day to this there had been no cause for alarm. James had
soon been reduced to order and had become a kind of necessity, like
the sideboard; he paid the bills. Child-birth had been alarming for a
moment, but Mrs. Maradick had always been healthy and they had
an excellent doctor, but, after Annie’s appearance, she had decided
that there should never be another. James presented no difficulties
at all, and her only real worry in life was her “hair.” There was not
very much of it, and she spent her mornings and her temper in
devising plans whereby it should be made to seem “a lot,” but it
never was satisfactory. Her “hair” became the centre of her life, her
horizon. James fitted into it. If the “hair” were all right, he didn’t
seem so bad. Otherwise he was stupid, dull, an oaf.
And so she had come down to Treliss and life had suddenly
changed. It had really changed from that first evening of their arrival
when he had been so rude to her, although she had not realised it at
the time. But the astonishing thing was that he had kept it up. He
had never kept anything up before, and it was beginning to frighten
her. At first it had seemed to her merely conceit. His head had been
turned by these people, and when he got back to Epsom and found
that he wasn’t so wonderful after all, and that the people there

didn’t think of him at all except as her husband, then he would find
his place again.
But now she wasn’t so sure. She had not been asleep last night
when he came to bed. She had seen him bend over with the candle
in his hand, and the look in his eyes had frightened her, frightened
her horribly, so that she had lain awake for hours afterwards,
thinking, puzzling for the first time in her life. During all these twenty
years of their married life he had been, she knew, absolutely faithful
to her. She had laughed at it sometimes, because it had seemed so
absolutely impossible that there should ever be anyone else. He did
not attract people in Epsom in the least; he had never made any
attempt to, and she had imagined him, poor fellow, sometimes
trying, and the miserable mess that he would make of it.
And now she had got to face the certainty that there was some
one else. She had seen it in his eyes last night, and she knew that
he would never have had the strength to keep up the quarrel for
nearly a fortnight unless some one else had been there. She saw
now a thousand things that should have convinced her before, little
things all culminating in that horrible picnic a few days ago. It was
as though, she thought, he had come down to Treliss determined to
find somebody. She remembered him in the train, how pleasant and
agreeable he had been! He had arranged cushions for her, got things
for her, but the moment they had arrived! Oh! this hateful town!
But now she had got to act. She had woke early that morning
and had found that he was already gone. That alone was quite
enough to stir all her suspicions.
Perhaps now he was down there in the town with some one!
Why should he get up at an unearthly hour unless it were for
something of the kind? He had always been a very sound sleeper. At
Epsom he would never have thought of getting up before eight. Who
was it?
She put aside, for a moment, her own feelings about him, the
curious way in which she was beginning to look at him. The different
side that he was presenting to her and the way that she looked at it
must wait until she had discovered this woman, this woman! She
clenched her little hands and her eyes flashed.

Oh! she would talk to her when she found her!
His early escape that morning seemed to her a sign that the
“woman” was down in the town. She imagined an obvious
assignation, but otherwise she might have suspected that it was Mrs.
Lester. That, of course, she had suspected from the day of the
picnic, but it seemed to her difficult to imagine that a woman of the
world, as Mrs. Lester, to give her her due, most obviously was, could
see anything in her hulk of a James; it would be much more
probable if it were some uncouth fisherwoman who knew, poor
thing, no better.
She looked at him now across the breakfast-table; his red
cheeks, his great nostrils “like a horse’s,” his enormous hands, but it
was not all hostility the look that she gave him. There was a kind of
dawning wonder and surprise.
They had their table by the window, and the sun beat through on
to the silver teapot and the ham and eggs. Annie had refused
porridge. No, she wasn’t hungry.
“You should have bathed, as I did, before breakfast,” said
Maradick.
So he’d bathed before breakfast, had he? She looked across at
him smiling.
“You were up very early,” she said.
“Yes, I slept badly.” They were down again, those blinds! She saw
him drop them down as though by magic. He was playing his game.
“Well, next time you must wake me and I’ll come too,” she said.
His sense of humour was touched at the idea of her coming down at
five in the morning, but he said nothing.
The knowledge, the increasing certainty that there was
something in it all, was choking her so that she found it exceedingly
difficult to eat. But that she should be baffled by James was so
incredible an idea that she concealed her rising temper.
She nodded gaily at Mrs. Lawrence, who swam towards their
table with outstretched hands and a blue scarf floating like wings
behind her.
“My dear!”
“My dear!”

“But you generally have it upstairs, I thought . . .”
“Yes, I know; but such a day, one couldn’t really . . .”
“Yes, I was awake ever so . . . But James has been bathing. No,
Lucy, sit still, dear, until we’ve finished. Bathing before breakfast. I
think I really must to-morrow.”
Epsom closed about the table.
She was extremely nice to him throughout the meal, and even
hinted at their doing something, spending the day, “and such a day.”
It was a shame not to take advantage of the weather “as a family.”
Quite a new idea, indeed, but he accepted it, and even began to
suggest possible places. She was baffled again, and, as the terrible
prospect of a whole day spent in James’s company, quite alone
except for the girls, pressed about her, became almost hysterical in
her hurriedly discovered reasons why, after all, it would never do.
But he smiled at her, and although he was quite ready to do
anything that she might suggest, it was a different kind of agreeing
from a week or two ago.
She retired from the breakfast-table baffled.
He had been watching the door of the breakfast-room eagerly,
and when he went out down into the garden he was still looking for
the same figure. There was no longer, there could be no longer any
disguise about the person, it was Mrs. Lester beyond any possible
question; but he did disguise the reason. He wanted to talk to her,
he liked to talk to her, just as he liked to talk to any understanding
person, quite irrespective of sex. She had, of course, her
atmosphere; it had a great deal in common with the place and the
weather and the amazing riot of colour that the weather had
brought. He saw her always as she had been on that first day,
primrose, golden, in that dark dim drawing-room; but that he should
think of her in that way didn’t show him, as it should have done,
how the case was really beginning to lie.
He had the “Play-boy” on his knee and the light swung, as some
great golden censor is swung before the High Altar, in waves of
scent and colour backwards and forwards before him. He watched,
looking eagerly down the sunlit path, but she did not come, and the
morning passed in its golden silence and he was still alone.

It wasn’t indeed until after lunch that things began to move
again, and then Tony came to him. He was in a glow of pleasure and
excitement; she had written to him.
“It was most awfully clever; she only wrote it after I left last
night and she hadn’t time to post it, of course, but she gave it to the
old apple-woman—you know, down by the tower—and right under
her father’s nose, and he hadn’t the least idea, and I’ve written back
because I mayn’t, perhaps, get a word with her this afternoon, and
old Morelli will be there.”
He sat on the edge of the stone wall, looking down at the town
and swinging his legs. The town was in a blaze of sun, seen dimly
through a haze of gold-dust. It hung like a lamp against the blue
sky, because the mist gathered closely about its foundations, and
only its roofs and pinnacles seemed to swing in the shifting dazzling
sun before their eyes.
“The old apple-woman,” said Tony, “is simply ripping, and I think
she must have had an awfully sad life. I should like to do something
for her.” There were at least ten people a day for whom he wanted
to do something. “I asked Bannister about her, but he wasn’t very
interested; but that’s because his smallest baby’s got whooping-
cough. He told me yesterday he simply whooped all night, and Mrs.
Bannister had to sit up with it, which pretty well rotted her temper
next day.” Tony paused with a consciousness that he was wandering
from the point. “Anyhow, here’s her letter, Janet’s, I mean. I know
she wouldn’t mind you seeing it, because you are in it almost as
much as I am.” He held out the letter.
“Did Morelli see her give it to the apple-woman?” asked
Maradick.
“Yes, she tells you in the letter. But he didn’t spot anything. He’s
such a funny beggar; he seems so smart sometimes, and then other
times he doesn’t see anything. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter much,
because I’m going to see him now and tell him everything.”
“Well; and then?” said Maradick.
“Oh! he’ll agree, I know he will. And then I think we’ll be married
right at once; there’s no use in waiting, you know, and there’s a little
church right over by Strater Cove, near the sea, a little tumbledown

place with a parson who’s an awful sportsman. He’s got five children
and two hundred a year, and—oh! where was I?—and then we’ll just
come back and tell them. They can’t do anything then, you know,
and father will get over it all right.”
Tony was so serene about it, swinging his legs there in the sun,
that Maradick could say nothing.
“And if Morelli doesn’t take to the idea?” he ventured at last.
“Oh! he!” said Tony. “Oh, he’s really most awfully keen. You
noticed how we got on. I took to him from the first, there was
something about him.” But he swung round rather anxiously towards
Maradick. “Why! do you think he won’t?” he said.
“I’m not sure of him,” Maradick answered. “I never have been.
And then I was with Punch this morning and he told me things about
him.”
“Things! What sort of things?” asked Tony rather incredulously.
“Oh, about the way that he treated his wife.” It was, after all,
Maradick reflected, extremely vague, nothing very much that one
could lay hands on. “I don’t like the man, and I don’t for a minute
think that he’s playing square with you.”
But Tony smiled, a rather superior smile. After all, that was
Maradick’s way, to be pessimistic about things; it was to do with his
age. Middle-aged people were always cautious and suspicious. For a
moment he felt quite a distance from Maradick, and something akin
to the same feeling made him stretch out his hand for Janet’s letter.
“After all,” he said rather awkwardly, “perhaps she would rather
that I didn’t show it to anyone, even you.” He jumped down from
the wall. “Well, I must be off. It’s after three. I say, keep the family
in the dark until I’m back. They’re sure to ask. Now that Alice and
father are both beginning to think about it we shall fairly have to
begin the conspirator business.” He laughed in his jolly way and
stood in front of Maradick with a smile all over his face. Suddenly he
leant forward and put his hands on the other man’s shoulders and
shook him gently.
“You silly old rotter, don’t look so sad about it, you don’t know
what fun it will all be. And you are the biggest brick in the world,
anyway. Janet and I will never forget you.” He bent down lower. “I

say, you’re not sick with me, are you? Because, scold me like
anything if I’ve done things. I always am doing things, you know.”
He turned round and faced the shining path and the sky like glass. “I
say! Isn’t it topping? But I must be off. I’ll come at once and tell you
when I get back. But I’ll have to be in time for dinner to-night or the
governor will keep me to my room on bread and water.” He was
gone.
Maradick, looking back on it all afterwards, always saw that
moment as the beginning of the second act. The first act, of course,
had begun with that vision of Janet on the stairs with the candle in
her hand. That seemed a long while ago now. Then had come all the
other things, the picnic, the swim, the talk with Mrs. Lester, Tony’s
proposal, his own talk with Punch that morning; all little things, but
all leading the situation inevitably towards its climax. But they had
all been in their way innocent, unoffending links in the chain. Now
there was something more serious in it all, from that evening some
other element mingled with the comedy.
He suddenly felt irritated with the sun and the colour and began
to walk up and down the path. The uneasiness that he had felt all
the afternoon increased; he began to wish that he had not allowed
Tony to go down alone. Nothing, of course, could happen to the boy;
it was absurd that he should imagine things, and probably it was due
to the heat. Every now and again some sound came up from the
town—a cry, a bell, the noisy rattle of a cart, and it seemed like an
articulate voice; the town seemed to have a definite personality,
some great animal basking there in the sun, and its face was the
face of Morelli.
He sat down on one of the seats in the shadiest part of the
garden; the trees hung over it in thick dark shadows, and at times a
breeze pushed like a bird’s wing through their branches.
All around him the path was dark, beyond it was a broad belt of
light. He must have gone asleep, because almost immediately he
seemed to be dreaming. The shadows on the path receded and
advanced as a door opens and shuts; the branches of the trees bent
lower and lower. It seemed in his dream that he recognised
something menacing in their movement, and he rose and passed

through the garden and in a moment he was in the town. Here too it
was dark, and in the market-place the tower stood, a black mass
against the grey sky behind it, and the streets twisted like snakes up
and down about the hill.
And then suddenly he was at Morelli’s house, he recognised the
strange carving and the crooked, twisting shape of the windows. The
door opened easily to his hand and he passed up the stairs. The
house was quite dark; he had to grope to find his way. And then he
was opposed by another door, something studded with nails—he
could feel them with his hands—and heavily barred. He heard voices
on the other side of the door, low, soft whispers, and then he
recognised them, they were Tony and Morelli. He was driven by an
impulse to beat the door and get at them; some fear clutched at his
throat so that he felt that Tony was in terrible danger. In a minute he
knew that he would be too late.
He knocked, at first softly and then furiously; for a moment the
voices stopped, and then they began again. No one paid any
attention to his knocking. He knew with absolute certainty that in a
few minutes the door would open, but first something would
happen. He began to beat on the door with his fists and to call out;
the house was, for the rest, perfectly silent.
And then suddenly he heard Morelli’s laugh. There was a
moment’s silence, and then Tony screamed, a terrified, trembling
scream; the door began to open.
Maradick awoke to find himself on the garden seat with his head
sunk on his breast and some one looking at him; in the hazy
uncertainty of his waking his first thought was that it was Janet—he
had scarcely recovered from his dream. He soon saw that it was not
Janet, and, looking up confusedly, blushed on finding that it was
Alice Du Cane. She was dressed in white, in something that clung
about her and seemed to be made all in one piece. It looked to him
very beautiful, and the great sweeping dark hat that she wore must
have been delightfully shady, but it only had the effect of confusing
him still more.
He knew Alice Du Cane very slightly, in fact he couldn’t really be
said to know her at all. They said “good morning” and “good

evening,” and it had occasionally happened that they had had to talk
“just to keep the ball rolling” at some odd minute or other, but she
had always given him the impression of being in quite “other
worlds,” from which she might occasionally look down and smile, but
into which he could never possibly be admitted. He had quite
acquiesced in all of this, although he had no feeling of the kind
about the rest of the party; but she belonged, he felt, to that small,
mysterious body of people who, in his mind at any rate, “were the
very top.” He was no snob about them, and he did not feel that they
were any the better people for their high position, but he did feel
that they were different. There were centuries of tradition behind
them, that perhaps was really it, and there were the old houses with
their lawns and picture galleries, and there were those wonderful
ancestors who had ruled England from the beginning of time.
He had laughed sometimes when his wife had represented to him
that certain people in Epsom, alluded to in a hushed voice and
mysterious nods, were really “it.” He knew so well that they were
not; nothing to do with it at all. But he always recognised “it” at
once when it was there. He did not recognise “it” in the Gales; there
was a certain quality of rest arising from assurance of possession
that they lacked, but Alice Du Cane had got “it,” most assuredly she
had got “it.”
He liked to watch her. She moved with so beautiful a quiet and
carried herself with so sure a dignity; he admired her enormously,
but had been quite prepared to keep his distance.
And then suddenly he had seen that she was in love with Tony,
and she was at once drawn into the vortex. She became something
more than a person at whom one looked, whom one admired as a
picture; she was part of the situation. He had been extremely sorry
for her, and it had been her unhappiness more than anything else
that had worried him about his part in the affair. But now, as he saw
her there watching him with a smile and leaning ever so slightly on
her parasol, of ever so delicate a pink, he was furiously
embarrassed.
He had been sleeping, probably with his mouth open, and she
had been watching him. He jumped to his feet.

“Oh, Miss Du Cane,” he stammered, “I really——”
But she broke in upon him, laughing.
“Oh! what a shame! Really, Mr. Maradick, I didn’t mean to, but
the gravel scrunched or something and it woke you. I’ve been doing
the same thing, sleeping, I mean; it’s impossible to do anything else
with heat like this.” Then her face grew grave. “All the same I’m not
sure that I’m sorry, because I have wanted to talk to you very badly
all day, and now, unless you do want to go to sleep again, it does
seem to be a chance.”
“Why, of course,” he answered gravely, and he made way for her
on the seat. He felt the sinister afternoon pressing upon him again.
He was disturbed, worried, anxious; his nerves were all to pieces.
And then she did most certainly embarrass him. The very way that
she sat down, the careful slowness of her movement, and the grace
with which she leant slightly forward so that the curve of her neck
was like the curve of a pink shell against her white dress,
embarrassed him. And he was tired, most undoubtedly tired; it was
all beginning to be too much for him.
And then he suddenly caught a look in her eyes as she turned
towards him; something melancholy and appealing in it touched his
heart and his embarrassment left him.
“Mr. Maradick,” she began hurriedly, with her face again turned
away from him, “you are much older than I am, and so I expect
you’ll understand what I am trying to get at. And anyhow, you know
all that’s been going on this week, more than anyone else does, and
so there’s no need to beat about the bush. Besides, I always hate it.
I always want to get straight at the thing, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said. It was one of the true things about both of them.
“Well then, of course it’s about Tony. We all want to know about
Tony, and nobody does know except you, and everybody’s afraid to
ask you except myself, so there you are. You mustn’t think me
impertinent; I don’t mean to be, but we must know—some of us, at
any rate!”
“What must you know?” he said. He was suddenly on his mettle.
He resented the note of command in her voice. About his general

position in the world he was quite ready to yield place, but about
Tony’s affairs he would yield to no one; that was another matter.
“Why, of course,” she said, looking at him, “what I want to know,
what we all want to know, is what he is doing. Of course we have
all, by this time, a pretty good idea. I saw him with that girl down on
the beach, and it’s been pretty obvious, by his being away so
continually, what he is after. No, it isn’t exactly so much what he is
doing as whether it’s all right.”
“But then,” said Maradick, facing her, “why exactly are you asking
me? Why not ask Tony?”
“Oh! you know that would be no good,” she said, shaking her
head impatiently. “Tony would tell me nothing. If he wanted to tell
us anything he would have told us. You can see how secret he’s
been keeping it all. And you’re the only other person who knows.
Besides, I don’t want you to betray any secrets, it’s only to tell us if
it’s all right. If you say it is then we shall know.”
“And who exactly is ‘we’?” Maradick asked.
Alice hesitated a moment. Then she said, “It’s Lady Gale really
who wants to know. She’s suffering terribly all this time, but she’s
afraid to ask you herself because you might tell her too much, and
then she couldn’t be loyal to Sir Richard. But, you know, she spoke
to you herself about it.”
“Yes, she did,” said Maradick slowly. “Then I suppose that this,
her sending you, means that she doesn’t quite trust me now. She
said before that she would leave it in my hands.”
“Yes. She trusts you just as much, of course. Only—well, you see,
you haven’t known Tony all his life as we have, you haven’t cared for
him quite as much as we have. And then I’m a woman, I should
probably see a whole lot of things in it that you couldn’t see. It’s
only that you should tell me a little about it, and then, if Lady Gale
sees that we both think it’s all right, she will be happier. Only, she’s
felt a little, just lately, that you weren’t very comfortable about it.”
“Is it only Lady Gale?” asked Maradick.
“Well, of course I want to know too. You see, I’ve known Tony
since we were both babies, and of course I’m fond of him, and I

should hate him to get in a mess”; she finished up rather
breathlessly.
He had a strong feeling of the pathos of it all. He knew that she
was proud and that she had probably found it very difficult to come
to him as she had done.
He could see now that she was struggling to keep her old pride
and reserve, but that she found it very hard.
His voice was very tender as he spoke to her.
“Miss Du Cane,” he said, “I understand. I do indeed. I would
have spoken to Lady Gale herself if she hadn’t begged me to keep
quiet about it. Besides, I wasn’t sure, I’m not sure now, how things
were really going, and I was afraid of alarming her.”
“Then there is trouble?” Alice said; “you are anxious?”
“No, not really,” Maradick hastened to assure her. “As far as the
main thing goes—the girl herself, I mean—it’s the best thing that
could possibly happen to Tony. The girl is delightful; better than that,
she is splendid. I won’t tell you more, simply that it is all right.”
“And Tony loves her?” Alice’s voice trembled in spite of itself.
“Yes, heart and soul,” said Maradick fervently; “and I think when
you see her that you will agree about her. Only you must see the
difficulties as well as I do; what we are doing is the only thing to do.
I think that to take Tony away now would lead to dreadful disaster.
He must go through with it. The whole thing has gone too far now
for it possibly to be stopped.”
“Then tell me,” Alice said slowly, “was she, do you suppose, the
girl that I saw down on the beach with Tony?”
“Yes,” said Maradick, “she must have been.”
The girl got up slowly from the seat and stood with her back to
him, her slim white figure drawn to its full height; the sun played like
fire about her dress and hair, but there was something very pathetic
in the way that she let her arms with a slow hopeless gesture fall to
her side, and stared, motionless, down the path.
Then she turned round to him.
“Thank you, Mr. Maradick,” she said, “that’s all I wanted to know.
I am happier about it, and Lady Gale will be too. You’re quite right
about taking Tony away. It would only mean a hopeless break with

Sir Richard, and then his mother would be caught into it too, and
that must be averted at all costs. Besides, if she is as nice as you
say, perhaps, after all, it is the best thing that could happen. And, at
any rate,” she went on after a little pause, “we are all most awfully
grateful to you. I don’t know what we should have done otherwise.”
Some one was coming down the path. They both, at the same
moment, saw that it was Mrs. Lester.
Alice turned. “I must go,” she said. “Thank you again for what
you told me.”
He watched her walk down the path, very straight and tall, with a
grace and ease that were delightful to him. The two women stopped
for a moment and spoke; then Alice passed out of sight and Mrs.
Lester came towards him.
Some clock in the distance struck six.

Solution Manual for Contemporary Auditing Real Issues and Cases 8th Edition by Knapp

More Related Content

Similar to Solution Manual for Contemporary Auditing Real Issues and Cases 8th Edition by Knapp (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Solution Manual for Contemporary Auditing Real Issues and Cases 8th Edition by Knapp