ally, in the street. Naturally I tried to escape from him--to
refer him to you. But I could not possibly escape from him, at night,
with no road for either of us but the railway line. I was at his mercy."

"What was his reason for not coming direct to me?"

They were still pausing in the road. Delaine could see in the failing
light that Anderson had grown pale. But he perceived also an expression
of scornful impatience in the blue eyes fixed upon him.

"He has professed to be afraid--"

"That I should murder him?" said Anderson with a laugh. "And he told you
some sort of a story?"

"A long one, I regret to say."

"And not to my credit?"

"The tone of it was certainly hostile. I would rather not repeat it."

"I should not dream of asking you to do so. And where is this precious
individual to be found?"

Delaine named the address which had been given him--of a lodging mainly
for railway men near Laggan.

"I will look him up," said Anderson briefly. "The whole story of course
is a mere attempt to get money--for what reason I do not know; but I
will look into it."

Delaine was silent. Anderson divined from his manner that he believed
the story true. In the minds of both the thought of Lady Merton emerged.
Anderson scorned to ask, "Have you said anything to them?" and Delaine
was conscious of a nervous fear lest he should ask it. In the light of
the countenance beside him, no less than of the event of the day, his
behaviour of the morning began to seem to him more than disputable. In
the morning he had seemed to himself the defender of Elizabeth and the
class to which they both belonged against low-born adventurers with
disreputable pasts. But as he stood there, confronting the "adventurer,"
his conscience as a gentleman--which was his main and typical
conscience--pricked him.

The inward qualm, however, only stiffened his manner. And Anderson asked
nothing. He turned towards Laggan.

"Good night. I will let you know the result of my investigations." And,
with the shortest of nods, he went off at a swinging pace down the road.

"I have only done my duty," argued Delaine with himself as he returned
to the hotel. "It was uncommonly difficult to do it at such a moment!
But to him I have no obligations whatever; my obligations are to Lady
Merton and her family."

CHAPTER VIII

It was dark when Anderson reached Laggan, if that can be called darkness
which was rather a starry twilight, interfused with the w