to attend to the wants of man and
beast. Flour and water for the horse and something hot for himself were
Yeovil's first concern, and then he began to clamour for geographical
information. He was rather dismayed to find that the cumulative opinions
of those whom he consulted, and of several others who joined unbidden in
the discussion, placed his destination at nothing nearer than nine miles.
Nine miles of dark and hilly country road for a tired man on a tired
horse assumed enormous, far-stretching proportions, and although he dimly
remembered that he had asked a guest to dinner for that evening he began
to wonder whether the wayside inn possessed anything endurable in the way
of a bedroom. The landlord interrupted his desperate speculations with a
really brilliant effort of suggestion. There was a gentleman in the bar,
he said, who was going in a motorcar in the direction for which Yeovil
was bound, and who would no doubt be willing to drop him at his
destination; the gentleman had also been out with the hounds. Yeovil's
horse could be stabled at the inn and fetched home by a groom the next
morning. A hurried embassy to the bar parlour resulted in the news that
the motorist would be delighted to be of assistance to a
fellow-sportsman. Yeovil gratefully accepted the chance that had so
obligingly come his way, and hastened to superintend the housing of his
horse in its night's quarters. When he had duly seen to the tired
animal's comfort and foddering he returned to the roadway, where a young
man in hunting garb and a livened chauffeur were standing by the side of
the waiting car.

"I am so very pleased to be of some use to you, Mr. Yeovil," said the car-
owner, with a polite bow, and Yeovil recognised the young Leutnant von
Gabelroth, who had been present at the musical afternoon at Berkshire
Street. He had doubtless seen him at the meet that morning, but in his
hunting kit he had escaped his observation.

"I, too, have been out with the hounds," the young man continued; "I have
left my horse at the Crow and Sceptre at Dolford. You are living at
Black Dene, are you not? I can take you right past your door, it is all
on my way."

Yeovil hung back for a moment, overwhelmed with vexation and
embarrassment, but it was too late to cancel the arrangement he had
unwittingly entered into, and he was constrained to put himself under
obligation to the young officer with the best grace he could muster.
After all, he