not exist, if one were to judge by the absence of hat
and the fact that his soft shirt was open at the throat. He was not more
than two hundred yards away from the clump of trees which screened his
watchers from view. If he caught an occasional glimpse of dainty blue
and white fabrics, he made no demonstration of interest or
acknowledgment. It was quite apparent that he was lazily surveying the
chateau, puffing with consistent ease at the cigarette which drooped
from his lips. His long figure was attired in light grey flannels; one
could not see the stripe at that distance, yet one could not help
feeling that it existed--a slim black stripe, if any one should have
asked.

"Quite at home," murmured her ladyship, which was enough to show that
she excused the intruder on the ground that he was an American.

"Mr. Britt was right," said Mrs. Browne irrelevantly. She was peering at
the stranger through the binoculars. "He is _very_ good-looking."

"And you from Boston, too," scoffed Lady Deppingham. Mrs. Browne
flushed, and smiled deprecatingly.

"Wonder what he's doing here in the grounds?" puzzled Browne.

"It's plain to me that he is resting his audacious bones," said her
ladyship, glancing brightly at her co-legatee. The latter's wife, in a
sudden huff, deliberately left them, crossing the macadam driveway in
plain view of the stranger.

"She's not above an affair with him," was her hot, inward lament. She
was mightily relieved, however, when the others tranquilly followed her
across the road, and took up a new position under the substitute clump
of trees.

The Enemy gave no sign of interest in these proceedings. If he was
conscious of being watched by these curious exiles, he was not in the
least annoyed. He did not change his position of indolence, nor did he
puff any more fretfully at his cigarette. Instead, his eyes were bent
lazily upon the white avenue, his thoughts apparently far away from the
view ahead. He came out of his lassitude long enough to roll and light a
fresh cigarette and to don his wide madras helmet.

Suddenly he looked to the right and then arose with some show of
alacrity. Three men were approaching by the path which led down from the
far-away stables. Browne recognised the dark-skinned men as servants in
the chateau--the major-domo, the chef, and the master of the stables.

"Lord Deppingham must have sent them down to pitch him over the wall,"
he said, with an excited grin.

"Impossib