e
along home again. Met these fellows on my way across town. Rather nice
chaps--one of 'em, anyhow. Used to know some friends of friends of his,
girl called Ailsa Lorne. And the other one happened to be there so I
asked him, too. They won't worry you much, 'Toinette. They're frightfully
keen about the country, and will be sure to go out shootin' and snuffin'
round like these town johnnies always do when they get in places like
this.... Well, as Mr. Brellier isn't here I suppose I'd better be making
my way home again. Wish we were married, 'Toinette. There'd be no more of
these everlasting separations then. No more nightmares for you, little
one. Only happiness and joy, and--and heaps of other rippin' things.
Never mind, we'll make it soon, won't we?"

She raised her face suddenly and her eyes met his. There was a haunted
look in them that made him draw closer, his own face anxious.

"What is it, dear?" he said in a low, worried tone.

"Only--Dacre Wynne. Always Dacre Wynne these days," she replied
unsteadily. "Do you know, Nigel, I am a silly girl, I know, but somehow I
dare not think of marriage with you until--everything is finally cleared
up, and his death or disappearance, or whatever the dreadful affair was,
discovered. I feel in some inexplicable way responsible. It is as if his
spirit were standing between us and our happiness. Tell me I am foolish,
please."

"You are more than foolish," said Nigel obediently, and laughed
carelessly to show her how he treated the thing. But in his heart he knew
her feelings, knew them and fully understood. It was exactly as he had
felt about it also. The bond that bound Dacre Wynne's life to his had not
yet been snapped, the mystery of his disappearance seemed only to
strengthen it. He wondered dully when he would ever feel free again, and
then laughed inwardly at himself for making a farce of the whole thing,
for building a mountain out of a stupid little molehill. And 'Toinette
was helping him. They were both unutterably foolish. Anyhow, Cleek was
coming soon to clear matters up. He wished with all his heart that he
might tell 'Toinette, and thus relieve the tension of her mind, but he
had given his word to Cleek, and with a man of his type his word was
sacred.

So he kissed her good-bye and laughed, and went back to Merriton Towers
to prepare for their coming. But the cloud had dropped across his horizon
again, and the sun was once more obscured. There was no smile upon h