he letter would have reached
Chislehurst on Monday morning. It would be redirected and reach
Hertfordshire on Tuesday. I should not get any news till Wednesday. I go
down to Beverly Stoke to-morrow, and then I find at once Miss Janet and
Miss Anne and my little Jean! The secret of business men, and I am a
business man, the accredited representative of Dulau et Compagnie--never
forget that--the secret of business is no delay."

He darted across the room to Bradshaw.

"For God's sake," said I, "put that nightmare of perpetual motion in
your pocket and go mad over it in the privacy of your own chamber."

"Very good," said he, tucking the brain-convulsing volume under his arm.
"I will put it on top of The Times and the family Bible and I will say
'Ha! now I am British. Now I am very respectable!' What else can I do?"

"Rent a pew in a Baptist chapel," said I.

* * * * *

After a three-mile trudge from St. Albans Aristide, following
directions, found himself on a high road running through the middle of a
straggy common decked here and there with great elms splendid in autumn
bravery, and populated chiefly by geese, who when he halted in some
perplexity--for on each side, beyond the green, were indications of a
human settlement--advanced in waddling flocks towards him and signified
their disapproval of his presence. A Sundayfied youth in a rainbow tie
rode past on a bicycle. Aristide took off his hat. The youth nearly fell
off the bicycle, but British doggedness saved him from disaster.

"Beverly Stoke? Will you have the courtesy----"

"Here," bawled the youth, with a circular twist of his head, and, eager
to escape from a madman, he rode on furiously.

Aristide looked to left and right at the little houses beyond the
green--some white and thatched and dilapidated, others horridly new and
perky--but all poor and insignificant. As his eyes became accustomed to
the scene they were aware of human forms dotted sparsely about the
common. He struck across and accosted one, an elderly woman with a
prayer-book. "Miss Honeywood? A lady from London?"

"That house over there--the third beyond the poplar."

"And little Jean--a beautiful child about four years old?"

"That I don't know, sir. I live at Wilmer's End, a good half mile from
here."

Aristide made for the third house past the poplar. First there was a
plank bridge across a grass-grown ditch; then a tiny patch of garden;
then a humbl