e, apostrophising the retreating figure with a malignant, inward
laugh! Then, when the last echo of her stout boots had faded away, he
entered his sister-in-law's room, looked around and meditatively began
to open various presses and drawers. "You visited this one at any
rate, my girl," thought he, as he recognised the special sound of the
hinges. "And, for a lady's maid, you have left it in singular
disorder. As for this," pulling open a linen drawer half-emptied, and
showing dainty feminine apparel, beribboned and belaced, in the most
utter disorder--"why, fie on you, Mrs. Potter! Is this the way to
treat these pretty things?"

He had seen enough. He paused a moment in the middle of the room with
his nails to his lips, smiling to himself.

"Ah, Mrs. Potter, I fancy you might have given us a little news,
yourself! Most unkind of my Lady Landale to prefer to keep us in this
unnatural anxiety--most unkind indeed! She must have singularly good
reasons for so doing.... Captain Smith, my friend, Mr. Cochrane, or
whatever may be your name, we have an account to settle. And there is
that fool of an Adrian scurrying over the seas in search of his
runaway wife! By George! my hand is not played out yet!"

Slowly he repaired to his study. There he sat down and wrote, without
any further reflection, an urgent letter to the chief officer of the
newly established Preventive Service Station. Then he rang the bell.

"One of the grooms will ride at once to Lancaster with this," he said
to the servant, looking at the missive in his hand. But instead of
delivering it he paused: a new idea had occurred. How many of these
servants might not be leagued in favour of that interloper, bribed, or
knowing him, perhaps, to have been a friend of Sir Adrian, or yet
again out of sheer spite to himself? No; he would leave no loop-hole
for treachery now.

"Send the groom to me as soon as he is ready," he continued, and when
the footman had withdrawn, enclosed the letter, with its tale-telling
superscription, in another directed to a local firm of attorneys, with
a covering note instructing them to see that the communication, on His
Majesty's Service, should reach the proper hands without delay.

When the messenger had set forth, Mr. Landale, on his side, had his
horse saddled and sallied out in the direction of Scarthey sands.

As from the top of the bluff he took a survey of the great bay, a
couple of figures crossing the strand in the distanc