er?" said Gordon.

"And if she had accepted him?" suggested the other.

"That's what I mean."

"I don't think he'd let her go very easily. He's a sort of dog whom
you cannot easily persuade to give up a bone. If he has set his heart
upon matrimony, he will not be turned from it. Do you know anything
of his intentions?"

"I fancy that he is thinking of it."

"And you mean that you were thinking of it, too, with the same lady."

"No, I didn't mean that." Then he added, after a pause, "That is
just what I did not mean to say. I did not mean to talk about myself.
But since you ask me the question, I will answer it truly,--I have
thought of the same lady. And my thoughts were earlier in the field
than his. I must say good-night now," he said, rising somewhat
brusquely from his chair. "I have to walk back to Alresford, and must
see Mr Whittlestaff early in the morning. According to your view of
the case I shan't do much with him. And if it be so, I shall be off
to the diamond-fields again by the first mail."

"You don't say so!"

"That is to be my lot in life. I am very glad to have come across you
once again, and am delighted to find you so happy in your prospects.
You have told me everything, and I have done pretty much the same to
you. I shall disappear from Alresford, and never more be heard of.
You needn't talk much about me and my love; for though I shall be out
of the way at Kimberley, many thousand miles from here, a man does
not care to have his name in every one's mouth."

"Oh no," said Blake. "I won't say a word about Miss Lawrie;--unless
indeed you should be successful."

"There is not the remotest possibility of that," said Gordon, as he
took his leave.

"I wonder whether she is fond of him," said the curate to himself,
when he resolved to go to bed instead of beginning his sermon that
night. "I shouldn't wonder if she is, for he is just the sort of man
to make a girl fond of him."

CHAPTER X.

JOHN GORDON AGAIN GOES TO CROKER'S HALL.

On the next morning, when John Gordon reached the corner of the road
at which stood Croker's Hall, he met, outside on the roadway, close
to the house, a most disreputable old man with a wooden leg and a red
nose. This was Mr Baggett, or Sergeant Baggett as he was generally
called, and was now known about all Alresford to be the husband of
Mr Whittlestaff's housekeeper. For news had got abroad, and tidings
were told that Mr Baggett was about to arrive in t