ounter currents. Andover, the old Cumbrian
squire, whose personal friction with Faversham had been sharpest, left
the inn with a much puzzled mind, but not prepared as yet to surrender
his main opinion of a young man, who after all had feathered his nest so
uncommonly well. "They may say what they d--n please," said the furious
and disappointed Nash, as he departed in company with his shabby
accomplice, the sallow-faced clerk, "but he's walked off with the dibs,
an' I suppose he thinks he'll jolly well keep 'em. The 'cutest young
scoundrel I ever came across!" which, considering the range of the
speaker's experience, was testimony indeed.

Regret, on the one hand, for a monstrous and exposed surmise; on the
other, instinctive resentment of the man's huge, unearned luck under the
will that Melrose would have revoked had he lived a few more hours, as
contrasted with the plight of Felicia Melrose; between these poles men's
minds went wavering. Colonel Barton stood at the door of the inn before
Faversham emerged for a few undecided moments, and finally walked away,
like Andover, with the irritable reflection that the grounds on which he
had originally cut the young man still largely stood; and he was not
going to kow-tow to mere money. He would go and have tea with Lady
Tatham; she was a sensible woman. Harry's behaviour seemed to him
sentimental.

Faversham, Boden, and Harry Tatham left the inn together and were joined
by Undershaw outside. They walked silently through the irregular village
street where groups stood at the cottage doors to see them pass. As they
emerged upon the high road the three others perceived that they were
alone. Faversham had disappeared.

"Where is he?" said Tatham, standing amazed and looking back. They had
gained the crest of a hill whence, beyond the roofs of Whitebeck in the
hollow, a section of the main road could be dimly seen, running west a
white streak piercing the wintry dusk. Along the white streak moved
something black--the figure of a man. Boden pointed to it.

"Where's he going?" The question fell involuntarily from Undershaw.

Boden did not reply. But as Undershaw spoke there flashed out a distant
light on the rising ground beyond the streak of road. Above it, huddled
shapes of mountains, dying fast into the darkness. They all knew it for a
light in Green Cottage; the same that Tatham had watched from the Duddon
moorland on the evening of the murder. They turned and walked on si