hat peaceful Kentish landscape, fantasy danced and
horrors unknown lurked in waiting...

The eminence upon which we were commanded an extensive prospect,
and eastward showed a tower and flagstaff which marked the site of
Cadham Hall. There were homeward-bound labourers to be seen in the
lanes now, and where like a white ribbon the Watling Street lay
across the verdant carpet moved an insect shape, speedily.

It was a car, and I watched it with vague interest. At a point
where a dense coppice spread down to the roadway and a lane crossed
west to east, the car became invisible. Then I saw it again, nearer
to us and nearer to the Gate House. Finally it disappeared among
the trees.

I turned to Carneta. She, too, had been watching. Now her gaze met
mine.

"Mr. Isaacs!" she said; and her voice was less musical than usual.
"His chauffeur, who learned his business in Cairo, is probably the
only one of his servants who remains in England."

"What!" I began--and said no more.

Where the road upon which we stood wound down into the valley and
lost itself amid the trees surrounding the Gate House, the car
suddenly appeared again, and began to mount the slope toward us!

"Heavens!" whispered Carneta. "He may have seen us--with glasses!
Quick! Let us walk back until the hill-top conceals us; then we
must hide somewhere!"

I shared her excitement. Without a moment's hesitation we both
turned and retraced our steps. Twenty paces brought us to a
spot where a stack of mangel wurzels stood at the roadside.

"This will do!" I said.

We ran around into the field, and crouched where we could peer out
on the road without ourselves being seen. Nor had we taken up this
position a moment too soon.

Topping the slope came a light-weight electric, driven by a man who,
in his spruce uniform, might have passed at a glance for a very
dusky European. The car had a limousine back, and as the chauffeur
slowed down, out from the open windows right and left peered the
solitary occupant.

He had the cast of countenance which is associated with the best
type of Jew, with clear-cut aquiline features wholly destitute of
grossness. His white beard was patriarchal and he wore gold-rimmed
pince-nez and a glossy silk hat. Such figures may often be met
with in the great money-markets of the world, and Mr. Isaacs would
have passed for a successful financier in even more discerning
communities than that of Cadham.

But I scarcely br