men--and one in particular--that Braden was
after? Did--did he name 'em?"

Glassdale leaned a little nearer to his companion on the rose-screened
bench.

"He named them--to me!" he said in a whisper. "One was a man called
Falkiner Wraye, and the other man was a man named Flood. Is that
enough?"

"I think you'd better come and see me this evening," answered Folliot.
"Come just about dusk to that door--I'll meet you there. Fine roses
these of mine, aren't they?" he continued, as they rose. "I occupy
myself entirely with 'em."

He walked with Glassdale to the garden door, and stood there watching
his visitor go away up the side of the high wall until he turned into
the path across Paradise. And then, as Folliot was retreating to his
roses, he saw Bryce coming over the Close--and Bryce beckoned to him.

CHAPTER XXV. THE OLD WELL HOUSE

When Bryce came hurrying up to him, Folliot was standing at his garden
door with his hands thrust under his coat-tails--the very picture of a
benevolent, leisured gentleman who has nothing to do and is disposed
to give his time to anybody. He glanced at Bryce as he had glanced at
Glassdale--over the tops of his spectacles, and the glance had no more
than mild inquiry in it. But if Bryce had been less excited, he would
have seen that Folliot, as he beckoned him inside the garden, swept a
sharp look over the Close and ascertained that there was no one about,
that Bryce's entrance was unobserved. Save for a child or two, playing
under the tall elms near one of the gates, and for a clerical figure
that stalked a path in the far distance, the Close was empty of life.
And there was no one about, either, in that part of Folliot's big
garden.

"I want a bit of talk with you," said Bryce as Folliot closed the door
and turned down a side-path to a still more retired region. "Private
talk. Let's go where it's quiet."

Without replying in words to this suggestion, Folliot led the way
through his rose-trees to a far corner of his grounds, where an old
building of grey stone, covered with ivy, stood amongst high trees. He
turned the key of a doorway and motioned Bryce to enter.

"Quiet enough in here, doctor," he observed. "You've never seen this
place--bit of a fancy of mine."

Bryce, absorbed as he was in the thoughts of the moment, glanced
cursorily at the place into which Folliot had led him. It was a square
building of old stone, its walls unlined, unplastered; its floor paved
w