seen her before."

"Where?"

"Why, in Canada. I was living on a farm, not far from Winnipeg"--he named
the place. Delane suddenly dropped his pipe, and stooped to pick it up.

"All right," he said, "go on."

"And there was a man--a sort of gentleman--his name was Delane--on
another farm about ten miles from where I was working. People talked
of him no end--he was a precious bad lot! I never saw him that I know
of--but I saw his wife twice. They say he was a brute to her. And she was
awfully handsome. You couldn't forget her when you'd once come across
her. And when I saw Miss Henderson drivin' one of the wagons in the
Millsborough Harvest Festival, a fortnight ago, I could have sworn it was
Mrs. Delane. But, of course, it was my mistake."

"Where did you see Mrs. Delane?"

"Once at her own place. I was delivering some poultry food that Delane
had bought of my employer--and once at a place belongin' to a man
called Tanner."

"Tanner?"

"Tanner. He was somethin' the same sort as Delane. We've a lot of them in
Canada--remittance men, we call them--men as can't get on in the old
country--and their relations pay 'em to go--and pay 'em to keep away. But
Tanner was a nice sort of fellow--quite different from Delane. He painted
pictures. I remember his showin' some o' them in Winnipeg. But he was
always down on his luck. He couldn't make any money, and he couldn't
keep it."

"You saw Miss Henderson there?"

Dempsey gave a guffaw.

"Oh, Lor, no! I don't say that. Why, I'd get into trouble--shouldn't I?
But I saw Mrs. Delane. I was driving past Tanner's place, with two
horses, and a heavy load, November two years ago--just before we passed
our Military Service Act, and I joined up. And an awful storm came on--a
regular blizzard. Before I got to Tanner's I was nearly wore out, an' the
horses, too. So I stopped to ask for a hot drink or somethin'. You
couldn't see the horses' heads for the snow. And Tanner brought me out
some hot coffee--I'm a teetotaller, you see--an' a woman stood at the
door, and handed it to him. She was holdin' a lamp, so I saw her quite
plain. And I knew her at once, though she was only there a minute. It was
Mrs. Roger Delane."

He stopped to light a cigarette. No sound came from his companion. All
round them spread the great common, with its old thorns, its clumps of
fir, its hollows and girdling woods, faintly lit by a ghostly moonlight
that was just beginning to penetrate the misty Novembe