things, and choose every bit of
fish that's cooked in this house. But as I was saying, sir, with regard
to this lady and gentleman, I think you said that the people you are
looking for were strangers to this part of the country, and were
occupying a farm-house that had been lent to them."

"Precisely."

"Well, sir, I remember some time in the early part of the year, I think
it must have been about March----"

"Yes, the people I am looking for would have arrived in March."

"Indeed, sir! That makes it seem likely. I remember a lady and gentleman
coming here from the railway station--we've got a station close by our
town, as you know, sir, I daresay. They wanted a fly to take them and
their luggage on somewhere--I can't for the life of me remember the name
of the place--but it was a ten-mile drive, and it was a farm--_that_ I
could swear to--Something Farm. If it had been a place I'd known, I think
I should have remembered the name."

"Can I see the man who drove them?" Gilbert asked quickly.

"The young man that drove them, sir, has left me, and has left these
parts a month come next Tuesday. Where he has gone is more than I can
tell you. He was very good with horses; but he turned out badly, cheated
me up hill and down dale, as you may say--though what hills and dales
have got to do with it is more than I can tell--and I was obliged to get
rid of him."

"That's provoking. But if the people I want are anywhere within ten miles
of this place, I don't suppose I should be long finding them. Yet the
mere fact of two strangers coming here, and going on to some place called
a farm, seems very slight ground to go upon. The month certainly
corresponds with the time at which Mr. and Mrs. Holbrook came to
Hampshire. Did you take any particular notice of them?"

"I took particular notice of the lady. She was as pretty a woman as ever
I set eyes upon--quite a girl. I noticed that the gentleman was very
careful and tender with her when he put her into the carriage, wrapping
her up, and so on. He looked a good deal older than her, and I didn't
much like his looks altogether."

"Could you describe him?"

"Well--no, sir. The time was short, and he was wrapped up a good deal;
the collar of his overcoat turned up, and a scarf round his neck. He had
dark eyes, I remember, and rather a stern look in them."

This was rather too vague a description to make any impression upon
Gilbert. It was something certainly to know that his r