ny--I think I read something
about it in the newspapers, but I forget what. I was just getting up from
some weeks of rheumatic fever at the time; I'd caught it working in the
fields; and news don't leave much impression in illness. Gorton never
spoke of it to me. I never heard him say who or what he was; and I
couldn't speak more truly if your lordship offered to give me the shed
as a bribe."

"Do you know where Gorton might be found at present?"

"I swear before Heaven that I know nothing of the man, and have never
heard of him since he went away," cried Pike, with a burst of either fear
or passion. "He was a stranger to me when he came, and he was a stranger
when he left. I found out the little game he had come about, and saved
your lordship from his clutches, which he doesn't know to this day. I
know nothing else about him at all."

"Well, good evening, Pike. You need not put yourself out for nothing."

He walked away, taking leave of the man as civilly as though he had been
a respectable member of society. It was not in Val's nature to show
discourtesy to any living being. Why Pike should have shrunk from the
questions he could not tell; but that he did shrink was evident; perhaps
from a surly dislike to being questioned at all; but on the whole Lord
Hartledon thought he had spoken the truth as to knowing nothing about
Gorton.

Crossing the road, he turned into the field-path near the Rectory; it was
a little nearer than the road-way, and he was in a hurry, for he had not
thought to ask at what hour his wife dined, and might be keeping her
waiting.

Who was this Pike, he wondered as he went along; as he had wondered
before now. When the man was off his guard, the roughness of his speech
and demeanour was not so conspicuous; and the tone assumed a certain
refinement that seemed to say he had some time been in civilized society.
Again, how did he live? A tale was told in Calne of Pike's having been
disturbed at supper one night by a parcel of rude boys, who had seen him
seated at a luxurious table; hot steak and pudding before him. They were
not believed, certainly; but still Pike must live; and how did he find
the means to do so? Why did he live there at all? what had caused him to
come to Calne? Who--

These reflections might have lasted all the way home but for an
interruption that drove every thought out of Lord Hartledon's mind, and
sent the heart's blood coursing swiftly through his veins. Turning a
cor