ot more than twenty-eight. All
this he summed up in a flash, as he went through the above preliminary
formalities.

"This is Dr Vine, our District Surgeon, Miss Carden," he said in
introduction. "Are you travelling alone, may I ask?"

"Yes. This time I thought I'd spring a surprise on my unknown relative,
so of course I was obliged to hire a cart at Telani--the driver is such
a disagreeable old man, by the bye. And the horses are wretched beasts.
Why I had to stop the night at a most abominable roadside place--an
accommodation house, I think they called it--presumably because
`accommodation' in every sense, was the very last thing they had to
offer." She laughed, so did the two men.

"Then there was a monster centipede kept appearing and disappearing on
the wall above my bed, so that I had to keep the light going all night,
and hardly got any sleep at all. And now one of the horses is dead
lame, and I am wondering how I am going to get on to Mr Thornhill's--
unless you can help me, Mr Elvesdon."

There was a something in the tone of this tail-off that conveyed to the
listeners the impression that she was very much accustomed to being
`helped'--in things great as well as small--and made no scruple about
requisitioning such help.

"Certainly I can, Miss Carden," answered Elvesdon. "If you will allow
me I shall be delighted to drive you out to Thornhill's this afternoon.
Meanwhile it is just lunch time--if you will give me the pleasure of
your company--you too, doctor? Very well then, we may as well adjourn
at once."

During lunch Elvesdon was somewhat silent. He had directed his native
servants when to inspan his spider and to transfer the visitor's baggage
to that useful vehicle--further, he had arranged matters with the driver
of the hired cart, an unprepossessing specimen of what would be defined
in the Southern States as `mean white,' and while doing so, the
astounding revelation made to him by Vine had come back to him with all
its full force. He did not know what to think. Thornhill seemed to him
the last man in the world to commit a cold-blooded murder--and that the
murder of a woman--but--what if it was a hot-blooded one? Looking back
upon his observation of this new found friend he recalled a certain
something that contained the possibilities of such--goaded by the weight
of an intolerable incubus. And his sons believed in him and his
daughter did not? Well, Elvesdon leaned to the opinion of