It's a heavy reckoning, maybe,
but the night calls for it. We'll see about that afterwards. Get along
with you, I say, Richard."

"I'll be wet through," the man muttered.

"And serve you right!" the woman exclaimed. "If there's a man in this
village to-night whose clothes are dry, it's a thing for him to be
ashamed of."

The innkeeper reluctantly departed. They heard the roar of the wind as
the door was opened and closed. The woman poured out another glass of
milk and brought it to Gerald.

"A godless man, mine," she said grimly. "If so happen as Mr. Wembley had
come to these parts years ago, I'd have seen myself in my grave before
I'd have married a publican. But it's too late now. We're mostly too
late about the things that count in this world. So it's your friend
that's been stricken down, young man. A well-living man, I hope?"

Gerald shivered ever so slightly. He drank the milk, however. He felt
that he might need his strength.

"What train might you have been on?" the woman continued. "There's none
due on this line that we knew of. David Bass, the station-master, was
here but two hours ago and said he'd finished for the night, and praised
the Lord for that. The goods trains had all been stopped at Ipswich, and
the first passenger train was not due till six o'clock."

Gerald shook his head with an affectation of weariness.

"I don't know," he replied. "I don't remember anything about it. We were
hours late, I think."

The woman was looking down at the unconscious man. Gerald rose slowly to
his feet and stood by her side. The face of Mr. John P. Dunster, even in
unconsciousness, had something in it of strength and purpose. The shape
of his head, the squareness of his jaws, the straightness of his thick
lips, all seemed to speak of a hard and inflexible disposition. His hair
was coal black, coarse, and without the slightest sprinkling of grey. He
had the neck and throat of a fighter. But for that single, livid, blue
mark across his forehead, he carried with him no signs of his accident.
He was a little inclined to be stout. There was a heavy gold chain
stretched across his waist-coat. From where he lay, the shining handle
of his revolver protruded from his hip, pocket.

"Sakes alive!" the woman muttered, as she looked down. "What does he
carry a thing like that for--in a peaceful country, too!"

"It was just an idea of his," Gerald answered. "We were going abroad in
a day or two. He was always nervous. I