e had no wish
to listen to explosions of anger over the telephone.

Tea, tinned salmon, plum and apple jam, and very indifferent bedrooms
were the best that the Commercial Hotel had to offer, but it was
infinitely better than being benighted on the moor. In spite of lack of
all toilet necessaries, the Ingletons slept peacefully, worn out with
their long day in the fresh air. Milner, the chauffeur, must have made
an early start, for he arrived at eleven o'clock next morning in the
small car, armed with his master's instructions. He paid the hotel bill,
chartered a taxi, in which he dispatched Lilias, Dulcie, Roland, Bevis
and Clifford, straight for home, then, engaging a mechanic from a
garage, and taking Everard as guide, he started up the hill in the
pouring rain to find the abandoned car. It needed several hours'
attention before it could be induced to start, and it was not until
evening that he was able to place it safely back in the motor-house at
Cheverley Chase.

Everard had expected his peppery grandfather to be angry, but he was
quite unprepared for the intensity of the storm which burst over his
head on his return.

"Your insolence goes beyond all bounds!" thundered Mr. Ingleton. "To
borrow my car without leave! And to take your sisters without a chaperon
to a fifth-rate public-house! You deserve horsewhipping for it! You
think yourself the young Squire, do you? And imagine you can do just
what you like here? While I'm above ground I'll have you to know _I'm_
master, and nobody else in this place!"

"I can't see it was anything so out of the way to take the kids a run in
the car, and I never meant to keep the girls out all night," replied
Everard defiantly. He had a temper as well as his grandfather, and the
pair had often been at loggerheads before.

"Indeed! There are ways of making people see! You can just go a little
too far sometimes!" declared the old gentleman sarcastically. "I've
given orders that you don't take either car out again unless Milner is
with you. So you understand?"

"I suppose I do," grunted Everard, turning sulkily away.

It was only a few days after this that Everard, Lilias, and Dulcie,
returning home across the park from a walk in the woods, met Mr. Bowden,
the family solicitor, who was riding down the drive from the Chase. He
stopped his motor-bicycle and got off to speak to them. They knew him
well, for he often came to the house to conduct their grandfather's
business, and