, following
it up by snatching, more than drawing the curtain over the opening--a
curtain originally placed there to keep off draughts, but so used by
Mrs Brade as to give the onlooker the idea that her husband was a
personage kept on exhibition, and not shown save as a favour and for
money paid.

"I don't know what I could be thinking of to marry such a man, sir," she
said indignantly. "Mad, indeed! Not mad enough to take more than's
good for me, and pretty often, too."

"A lesson for you, Mrs Brade," said Guest sternly, "You cannot make a
more painful or dangerous assertion about a person than to say that a
person or personage is mad."

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

WALKING IN THE DARK.

Disappointed in his visit to the inn, Guest went back to his own
chambers, where his first act on reaching his room, with its lookout
over the old rookery, was to take out his pocketbook, and carefully
examine a photograph--a proof intrusted to his care that day--and which
he instantly pressed to his lips several times before restoring it to
its envelope, and returning it to his breast.

His next proceeding was to light his pipe, lie back, and think over Miss
Jerrold's words; and the more he thought over them the more they seemed
to fit with the situation.

One thought begat another till he grew startled at the growth emanating
from Miss Jerrold's suggestion.

Stratton had always been greatly attached to him, he knew, but he did
not always confide in him; he had a way of being extremely reticent,
especially over money matters, and he recalled a little upset they had
once had about a time when Stratton was hard pressed to get his rent
ready and had raised the money in what he (Guest) had dubbed a
disreputable way--that is to say, he had borrowed from "a relative"
instead of from his friend.

"The old lady's right," mused Guest, after a long period of thinking,
during which his ideas seemed to ripen. "Mr Brettison must know, and
depend upon it, he, being such a particular, high-souled man, was angry
with Stratton, and would not come to the wedding. Of course; I remember
now, Stratton did say that morning that Brettison was off, out
collecting. Now, how to find out where he has gone."

No idea came, for Brettison was one of the most erratic and enthusiastic
of beings. Being very wealthy, and living in the simplest way, money
was no object; and he would go off anywhere, and at any cost, to obtain
a few simple and rare pla