" Dunn remarked.

"Oh, quite true," answered Deede Dawson. "Well, did you enjoy your visit
to Wreste Abbey?"

"No," answered Dunn roughly. "I didn't see Rupert Dunsmore, and it
wouldn't have been any good if I had with all those people about."

"You're too impatient," Deede Dawson smiled. "I'm getting everything
ready; you can't properly expect to win a game in a dozen moves. You
must develop your pieces properly and have all ready before you start
your attack. As soon as I'm ready--why, I'll act--and you'll have to do
the rest."

"I see," said Dunn thoughtfully.

CHAPTER XXI. DOUBTS AND FEARS

In point of fact Dunn had not been asleep when Deede Dawson came
listening at his door. Of late he had slept little and that little had
been much disturbed by evil, haunting dreams in which perpetually he saw
his dead friend, Charley Wright, and dead John Clive always together,
while behind them floated the pale and lovely face of Ella, at whom the
two dead men looked and whispered to each other.

In the day such thoughts troubled him less, for when he was under the
influence of Ella's gentle presence, and when he could watch her clear
and candid eyes, he found all doubt and suspicion melting away like snow
beneath warm sunshine.

But in the silence of the night they returned, returned very dreadfully,
so dreadfully that often as he lay awake in the darkness beads of sweat
stood upon his forehead and he would drive his great hands one against
the other in his passionate effort to still the thoughts that tormented
him. Then, in the morning again, the sound of Ella's voice, the merest
glimpse of her grave and gracious personality, would bring back once
more his instinctive belief in her.

The morning after Deede Dawson had paid his visit to the attic there
was news, however, that disturbed him greatly, for Mrs. Barker, the
charwoman who came each morning to Bittermeads, told them that two men
in the village--notorious poachers--had been arrested by the police on a
charge of being concerned in Mr. Clive's death.

The news was a great shock to Dunn, for, knowing as he thought he did,
that the police were working on an entirely wrong idea, he had not
supposed they would ever find themselves able to make any arrest. As
a matter of fact, these arrests they had made were the result of
desperation on the part of the police, who unable to discover anything
and entirely absorbed by their preconceived idea that the crime wa