hat of Dora and me?'

'You would write Sunday-school prizes.'

Maud turned away and left him.

He knocked the dust out of the pipe he had been smoking, and again set
off for a stroll along the lanes. On his countenance was just a trace
of solicitude, but for the most part he wore a thoughtful smile. Now
and then he stroked his smoothly-shaven jaws with thumb and fingers.
Occasionally he became observant of wayside details--of the colour of a
maple leaf, the shape of a tall thistle, the consistency of a fungus. At
the few people who passed he looked keenly, surveying them from head to
foot.

On turning, at the limit of his walk, he found himself almost face to
face with two persons, who were coming along in silent companionship;
their appearance interested him. The one was a man of fifty, grizzled,
hard featured, slightly bowed in the shoulders; he wore a grey felt hat
with a broad brim and a decent suit of broadcloth. With him was a girl
of perhaps two-and-twenty, in a slate-coloured dress with very little
ornament, and a yellow straw hat of the shape originally appropriated to
males; her dark hair was cut short, and lay in innumerable crisp curls.
Father and daughter, obviously. The girl, to a casual eye, was neither
pretty nor beautiful, but she had a grave and impressive face, with a
complexion of ivory tone; her walk was gracefully modest, and she seemed
to be enjoying the country air.

Jasper mused concerning them. When he had walked a few yards, he looked
back; at the same moment the unknown man also turned his head.

'Where the deuce have I seen them--him and the girl too?' Milvain asked
himself.

And before he reached home the recollection he sought flashed upon his
mind.

'The Museum Reading-room, of course!'

CHAPTER II. THE HOUSE OF YULE

'I think' said Jasper, as he entered the room where his mother and Maud
were busy with plain needlework, 'I must have met Alfred Yule and his
daughter.'

'How did you recognise them?' Mrs Milvain inquired.

'I passed an old buffer and a pale-faced girl whom I know by sight at
the British Museum. It wasn't near Yule's house, but they were taking a
walk.'

'They may have come already. When Miss Harrow was here last, she said
"in about a fortnight."'

'No mistaking them for people of these parts, even if I hadn't
remembered their faces. Both of them are obvious dwellers in the valley
of the shadow of books.'

'Is Miss Yule such a fright then?' asked Mau