hint of
interest in any of the Shereling inhabitants. Even the tap-room yokels
have not produced a stimulating curiosity, and higher society is lacking
in the village. The squire is away, and medical and legal needs, it
appears, are supplied from Dallingham. There is Mr. "Beckett," it is
true; but he plays golf, spending the rest of his time in his bedroom,
repulsing all overtures of friendship. There is the vicarage, of course,
and Mrs. Peters has been prevailed upon to invite them to dinner, for
the vicar is a friendly soul, anxious to make the most of the social
crumbs dropped rarely in his path. Tony and Robert have dined there,
and been round two or three times to smoke a pipe and inspect the roses;
but Mrs. Peters does not diffuse an atmosphere of comfort, and the vicar
himself is an exhausted fountain after an hour. A kindly, cheerful
little man; but sixty minutes' prattle is as much as Tony can bear.
Robert might find a longer period congenial, but he is perpetually
ill-at-ease under his cognomen of Bangs, fearful of betraying himself,
inclined to blush without apparent cause. Indeed, if it were not for
Tony, Robert might have given up the pursuit already. Not that he means
to go back home as yet: liberty is still precious; and adventures, or at
least unfettered repose, may be sought at Brighton or Eastbourne before
he returns to nonentity. But is it worth while waiting at Shereling,
where the mysterious Billy is never seen, where the remembrance of the
strange lady is daily growing fainter? It looks very much as if that
bright spark of romance has been extinguished: how can he hope to blow
it into flame once more? Tony, the incomparable Tony, the man of many
schemes, has nothing to suggest: he only says "Patience," and Robert is
growing restive.

But why does Tony depart so far from his usual attitude as to say
"Patience"? As a rule, an adventure or an experience can hold him but
for a day or two,--a week is almost unthinkable. And now, at the end of
a fortnight, he still says "Patience"--unruffled, imperturbable,
productive of threadbare platitudes as to the building of Rome,
apparently hopeful. The simple reason is that Tony has not seen his
card-dropping divinity again, and he hates being balked.

In a word, the pair of them had waited, watched and spied for fourteen
days without result. There had been night vigils as well as by day, but
nothing had been learned. After dusk set in they had sometimes watched