it."

Martin Hillyard turned to Sir Chichester.

"And now, if you will allow me, I will open my box of cigarettes."

Harry Luttrell went back to his depot the next morning, without seeing
Joan again. Millicent Splay wrote to him during the next week. The
inquest had been confined within its proper limits. Jenny Prask had
spoken the truth in the witness box, and from beginning to end there had
been no mention of Joan or Mario Escobar. A verdict of temporary
insanity had been returned, and Stella now lay in the village
churchyard. Harry Luttrell drew a breath of relief and turned to his
work. For six weeks his days and nights were full; and then came
twenty-four hours' leave and a swift journey into Sussex. He arrived at
Rackham Park in the dusk of the evening. By a good chance he found Joan
with Millie Splay and Sir Chichester alone.

Sir Chichester welcomed him with cordiality.

"My dear fellow, I am delighted to see you. You will stay the night, of
course."

"No," Harry answered. "I must get back to London this evening."

He took a cup of tea, and Sir Chichester, obtuse to the warning glances
of his wife, plunged into an account of the events which had followed
his departure.

"I drew out a statement. Nothing could have been more concise, the
coroner said. What's the matter, Millie? Why don't you leave me alone?
Oh--ah--yes," and he hummed a little and spluttered a little, and then
with an air of the subtlest craft he remarked, "There are those plans
for the new pig-sties, Millie, which I am anxious to show you."

He was manoeuvred at last from the room. Harry Luttrell and Joan
Whitworth were left standing opposite to one another in the room.

"Joan," Harry Luttrell said, "in ten days I go back to France."

With a queer little stumble and her hands fluttering out she went
towards him blinded by a rush of tears.

CHAPTER XXXII

"BUT STILL A RUBY KINDLES IN THE VINE"

Between the North and South Downs in the east of Sussex lies a wide
tract of pleasant homely country which, during certain months of those
years, was subject to a strange phenomenon. Listen on a still day when
the clouds were low, or at night when the birds were all asleep, and you
heard a faint, soft thud, so very faint that it was rather a convulsion
of the air than an actual sound. Fancy might paint it as the tap of an
enormous muffled drum beaten at a giant's funeral leagues and leagues
away. It was not the roll of thunder. The