t was a good
strip of carefully kept lawn and flower garden. The whole place had an air
of dignity and beauty that I had not expected, and I think Banks must have
noticed my surprise, for he said,--

"Not bad, is it? Used to be a kind of dower house once upon a time, they
say."

"Absolutely charming," I replied. "Now, this is the sort of house I should
like to live in."

"I dare say it'll be to let before long," Banks said with a touch of grim
humour.

"Not to me, though," I said.

He laughed. "Perhaps not," he agreed.

We had paused at the end of the little avenue for me to take in the effect
of the house, and as we still stood there, the sound of a man's voice came
to us through the open window of one of the rooms on the ground floor.

"Your father's home sooner than you expected," I remarked.

"That's not the old man," Banks said in a tone that instantly diverted my
gaze from the beauties of the Home Farm.

"Who is it, then?" I asked.

"Listen!" he said. He was suddenly keen, alert and suspicious. I saw him
no longer as the gentleman's servant, the product of the Jervaise estate,
but as the man who had knocked about the world, who often preferred to
sleep in the open.

"There are two of them there," he said; "Frank Jervaise and that young
fellow Turnbull, if I'm not mistaken." And even as he spoke he began
hurriedly to cross the little lawn with a look of cold anger and
determination that I was glad was not directed against myself.

As I followed him, it came into my mind to wonder whether Frank Jervaise
had taken me with him as a protection the night before? Had he been afraid
of meeting Banks? I had hitherto failed to find any convincing reason for
Jervaise's queer mark of confidence in me.

X

THE HOME FARM

I must own that I was distinctly uncomfortable as I followed Banks into
the same room in which I had sat on my previous visit to the Home Farm.
The influence of tradition and habit would not let me alone. I cared
nothing for the Jervaises' opinion, but I resented the unfairness of it
and had all the innocent man's longing to prove his innocence--a feat that
was now become for ever impossible. By accepting Banks's invitation, I had
confirmed the worst suspicions the Jervaises could possibly have harboured
against me.

Indeed, it seems probable that I was now revealing more shameful depths of
duplicity than their most depraved imaginings had been able to picture. As
I entered the ro