eam now.

She had motored off then and there with the head of the "Refuge,"
without even waiting to wire from town. Only when they neared their
destination had she thought of sending off a message to me, with the
address where I was to follow her. That message had probably been tossed
into the hedgerow by the tramp to whom it had been hastily entrusted.

Hence my anxiety and suspense, which Miss Million declared had been
nothing compared to her own!

Of course, people who have given terrible frights to their friends
always insist upon it that it is they who have been the frightened ones!

But all this, of course, was what I picked up by degrees, and in
incoherent patches, later on.

Many things had happened before I really got to the rights of the story.
One scene after another has been flicked on to the screen of my
experiences ... but to take things in order.

Perhaps I had better go back to where I was unpacking Million's things
in the transformed farmhouse bedroom, and where I was confronted with a
fresh anxiety.

Namely, that the wealthy and ingenuous and inexperienced Million really
had fallen in love with that handsome ne'er-do-weel, Mr. James Burke.

"Have you?" I persisted. "Have you?"

Million gave a little admitting sigh. She sat there on the edge of the
dimity bed, and watched me shake out that detested evening frock in
which she had motored down.

She has got it so crumpled that I shall make it the excuse never to let
her wear it again.

"The Honourable Mr. Burke," said Million, with a far-away look in her
eyes, "is about the handsomest gentleman that I have ever seen."

"I daresay," I said quite severely. "Certainly there is no denying the
Honourable Jim's good looks. Part of his stock-in-trade! But you know,
Miss Million"--here I brought out the eternal copy-book maxim--"Handsome
is as handsome does!"

Hereupon Million voiced the sentiment that I had always cherished myself
concerning that old proverb.

"It may be true. But then, it always seems to me, somehow, as if it was
neither here nor there!"

I didn't know what to say. It seemed so very evident that Million had
set her innocent and affectionate heart on a young man who was
good-looking enough in his Celtic, sooty-haired, corn-cockle, blue-eyed
way, but who really had nothing else to recommend him. Everything to be
said against him, in fact. Insincere, unscrupulous, cynical, unreliable;
everything that's bad, bad, BAD!

"You can