themselves again with the hints
that Zack had dropped of some incomprehensible connection between a
Hair Bracelet, and the young girl who was called by the strange name
of "Madonna." With the remembrance of this, there came back also the
recollection of the letter about a bracelet, and its enclosure of hair,
which he had examined in the lonely cattle-shed at Dibbledean, and which
still lay in the little box bearing on it the name of "Mary Grice."

"Well!" cried Zack, speaking as he came on. "Well, Cupid! what do you
want with me now?"

Mat did not immediately answer. His thoughts were still traveling back
cautiously over the ground which they had already explored. Once more,
he was pondering on that little circle of plaited hair, having gold at
each end, and looking just big enough to go round a woman's wrist, which
he had seen in the drawer of Mr. Blyth's bureau. And once again, the
identity between this object and the ornament which young Thorpe had
described as being the thing called a Hair Bracelet, began surely and
more surely to establish itself in his mind.

"Now then, don't keep me waiting," continued Zack, laughing again as
he came nearer; "clap your hand on your heart, and give me your tender
message for the future Mrs. Marksman."

It was on the tip of Mat's tongue to emulate the communicativeness
of young Thorpe, and to speak unreservedly of what he had seen in the
drawer of the bureau--but he suddenly restrained the words just as they
were dropping from his lips. At the same moment his eyes began to lose
their vacant perturbed look, and to brighten again with something of
craft and cunning, added to their customary watchful expression.

"What's the young woman's real name?" he asked carelessly, just as Zack
was beginning to banter him for the third time.

"Is that all you called me back for? Her real name's Mary."

Mat had made his inquiry with the air of a man whose thoughts were far
away from his words, and who only spoke because he felt obliged to say
something. Zack's reply to his question startled him into instant and
anxious attention.

"Mary!" he repeated in a tone of surprise. "What else, besides Mary?"

"How should I know? Didn't I try and beat it into your muddled old head,
half-an-hour ago, that Blyth won't tell his friends anything about her?"
There was another pause. The secrecy in which Mr. Blyth chose to conceal
Madonna's history, and the sequestered place in the innermost drawer
of