ly, and he went back to his room puzzling over what he had seen,
and over what he could neither see nor understand. The desire for
sleep was altogether gone from him. He opened his window and leaned
out. The rain had ceased, but the branches still dripped and the air
was of an incomparable sweetness. Blackbirds and thrushes on the
lawns, and in the thicket-depths were singing as though their lives
hung upon the full fresh utterance of each note. A clear pure light
was diffused across the world. Fosbrook went back to his old idea of
some vengeful pursuit sprung from a wrong done long ago in Tangier.
The picture of Major Lashley struck with terror as he got news of his
pursuers, and slinking off into the darkness. Even now, somewhere or
another, on the uplands or the plains of England, he might be rising
from beneath a hedge to shake the rain from his besmeared clothes, and
start off afresh on another day's aimless flight. The notion caught
his imagination and comforted him to sleep. But in the morning he woke
to recognise its unreality. The unreality became yet more vivid to
him at the breakfast-table, when he sat with two pairs of young eyes
turning again and again trustfully towards him. The very reliance
which the man and woman so clearly placed in him spurred him. Since
they looked to him to clear up the mystery, why he must do it, and
there was an end of the matter.

He was none the less glad, however, when Mr. Jerkley announced his
intention of returning home. There would at all events be one pair
of eyes the less. He strolled with Mr. Jerkley on the terrace
after breakfast with a deep air of cogitation, the better to avoid
questions. Gibson Jerkley, however, was himself in a ruminative
mood. He stopped, and gazing across the valley to the riband of road
descending the hill:

"Down that road the soldier came," said he, "whose stories brought
about all this misfortune."

"And very likely down that road will come the bearer of news to make
an end of it," rejoined Fosbrook sententiously. Mr. Jerkley looked at
him with a sudden upspringing of hope, and Sir Charles nodded with
ineffable mystery, never guessing how these lightly spoken words were
to return to his mind with the strength of a fulfilled prophecy.

As he nodded, however, he turned about towards the house, and a
certain disfigurement struck upon his eyes. Two windows on the first
floor were entirely bricked up, and as the house was square with level
tier