irably, and steered clear of any reference to Pencarrow or
its owner; though, of course, he talked a lot about his beloved
Cornwall while we had tea.

"He's charming!" Mary declared, after he had gone. "Though why a man
like that should be a bachelor beats me, when there are such hordes of
nice women in England who would get married if they could, only there
aren't enough men to go round! I guess I'll ask Jane Fraser."

She paused meditatively, chin on hand.

"No,--Jane's all right, but she'd just worry him to death; there's no
repose about Jane! Margaret Haynes, now; she looks early Victorian,
though she can't be much over thirty. She'd just suit him,--and that
nice old vicarage. I'll write and ask her to come down for a week or
two,--right now! What do you think, Maurice?"

"That you're the most inveterate little matchmaker in the world. Why
can't you leave the poor old man in peace?" I answered, secretly
relieved that she had, for the moment, forgotten her anxiety about Anne.

She laughed.

"Bachelorhood isn't peace; it's desolation!" she declared. "I'm sure
he's lonely in that big house. What was that he said about expecting you
to-night?"

"I'm going to call round after dinner and get hold of some facts on
Cornish history," I said evasively.

I hadn't the faintest notion as to what I expected to learn from him,
but the moment he had said he knew Anthony Pendennis the thought flashed
to my mind that he might be able to give me some clue to the mystery
that enveloped Anne and her father; and that might help me to shape my
plans.

I would, of course, have to tell him the reason for my inquiries, and
convince him that they were not prompted by mere curiosity. I was filled
with a queer sense of suppressed excitement as I walked briskly up the
steep lane and through the churchyard,--ghostly looking in the
moonlight,--which was the shortest way to the vicarage, a picturesque
old house that Mary and I had already viewed from the outside, and
judged to be Jacobean in period. As I was shown into a low-ceiled room,
panelled and furnished with black oak, where the vicar sat beside a log
fire, blazing cheerily in the great open fireplace, I felt as if I'd
been transported back to the seventeenth century. The only anachronisms
were my host's costume and my own, and the box of cigars on the table
beside him, companioning a decanter of wine and a couple of tall,
slender glasses that would have rejoiced a connoisseur's h