, that boy has a trifle on his mind."

"I suppose he has been worrying a farmer or a gamekeeper."

"Try him. You'll find him tight. He's got Miss Middleton on the brain.
There's a bit of a secret; and he's not so cheerful about it."

"We'll see," said the colonel.

Dr Corney nodded. "I have to visit my patient here presently. I'm too
early for him: so I'll make a call or two on the lame birds that are
up," he remarked, and drove away.

De Craye strolled through the garden. He was a gentleman of those
actively perceptive wits which, if ever they reflect, do so by hops and
jumps: upon some dancing mirror within, we may fancy. He penetrated a
plot in a flash; and in a flash he formed one; but in both cases, it
was after long hovering and not over-eager deliberation, by the patient
exercise of his quick perceptives. The fact that Crossjay was
considered to have Miss Middleton on the brain, threw a series of
images of everything relating to Crossjay for the last forty hours into
relief before him: and as he did not in the slightest degree speculate
on any one of them, but merely shifted and surveyed them, the falcon
that he was in spirit as well as in his handsome face leisurely allowed
his instinct to direct him where to strike. A reflective disposition
has this danger in action, that it commonly precipitates conjecture for
the purpose of working upon probabilities with the methods and in the
tracks to which it is accustomed: and to conjecture rashly is to play
into the puzzles of the maze. He who can watch circling above it
awhile, quietly viewing, and collecting in his eye, gathers matter that
makes the secret thing discourse to the brain by weight and balance; he
will get either the right clue or none; more frequently none; but he
will escape the entanglement of his own cleverness, he will always be
nearer to the enigma than the guesser or the calculator, and he will
retain a breadth of vision forfeited by them. He must, however, to have
his chance of success, be acutely besides calmly perceptive, a reader
of features, audacious at the proper moment.

De Craye wished to look at Miss Dale. She had returned home very
suddenly, not, as it appeared, owing to her father's illness; and he
remembered a redness of her eyelids when he passed her on the corridor
one night. She sent Crossjay out to him as soon as the boy was well
filled. He sent Crossjay back with a request. She did not yield to it
immediately. She stepped to