called after us, you remember. He was waving something
white."

"Oh! You didn't tell me. And you'd given him half a crown!" said
Amaryllis.

"Seemed a grateful sort of bloke, didn't he?" said Dick, ruefully.

"And wanted to give it back to me? Oh, Dick! Melchard was there, close
by, talking to the handsome clergyman."

"Was it marked."

"An embroidery-stitched A.C. That's all," said Amaryllis.

"C doesn't stand for Bunce. Let's get out of this," said Dick Bellamy.

CHAPTER XX.

A ROPE OR SOMETHING.

As they reached the level of the moor and the Drovers' Track, to join
which ancient road their path stretched on for yet a mile, they turned,
moved by a common impulse, to look down on the green hollow which had
been the nest of so great a happiness.

"Emerald, you said, Amaryllis?"

"And blue, Dick, from the sky."

When they had tramped a half-mile or more in silence which seemed to
Amaryllis very close communion, Dick spoke; for already he was feeling
the stones of the world beneath their feet.

"We put our money on the wrong horse, dear. They didn't suspect--they
knew. And they're near us," he said.

"I don't care. If they kill me now, Dick, I don't care."

He agreed--nodding more sympathetically, she thought, than any man
before him had ever nodded.

But after another silence, he said:

"And yet that makes it all the more necessary to come out top dog this
time. Where d'you think they are?"

"If the Drovers' Track's good enough for a car," she answered, "I should
guess--after all, it's all guessing, isn't it?--I should guess that they
turned off the road at the hawthorns and the white stone, and drove
straight on to Harthborough."

"They've had time to go and come back," said Dick. "If we had food with
us, we might hide all night on the moor. But you'd be ill by the
morning."

"Let's go on," said Amaryllis.

"You lead me to luck," he answered, "so what you say goes. A train's the
safest place for us, and, if Melchard's seen his picket there after
driving right over this ground, he won't be expecting to find us on the
way back."

"He may be between us and Harthborough now," said Amaryllis.

"If we can pass him, then," said Dick, "his Harthborough picket won't
give us much trouble. Our other way is the London road. There we might
run into Melchard plus his picket. The railway's at Harthborough, so
Harthborough's got it."

"And here," said the girl, "is the Drovers' Track."

Befor