land what does that, mean?"

"I am one of the Duke's secretaries," I answered.

"Is the Duke, then, a politician?" she asked, "that he needs
secretaries?"

"Not at all," I answered drily. "His Grace is President of the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or Children, whichever you
like. We have a large correspondence."

She picked up her book.

"I am afraid that I understand you," she said. "You have a good deal of
the brutality of youth, Guy, and, I might add, of its credulity also.
Whose word is it, I wonder, that you have taken so abjectly--with such
an open mouth? If I have enemies I have not deserved them. But, after
all, it matters little."

We did not speak again until we neared the junction. Then she began to
gather up her things.

"How are you getting home?" she asked. "It is two o'clock, and
raining."

"I am going to walk," I answered.

"But that is absurd," she protested. "I have a closed carriage here. I
insist that you let me drive you. It is only common humanity; and you
have that great box too."

I buttoned up my coat.

"Mrs. Smith-Lessing," I said, "you perhaps wish to force me into
seeming ungracious. You have even called me brutal. It is your own
fault. You give me no chance of escape. You even force me now to tell
you that I do not desire--that I will not accept--any hospitality at
your hands."

She fastened her jacket with trembling fingers. Her face she kept
averted from me.

"Very well," she said softly, "I shall not trouble you any more."

At the junction I fetched the sleepy-looking porter to see to her
luggage, and then left her. My rug I left in the station-master's
office, and with the dispatch-box in my hand I climbed the steps from
the station, and turned into the long straight road which led to
Braster. I had barely gone a hundred yards when a small motor brougham,
with blazing lights and insistent horn, came flying past me and on into
the darkness. I caught a momentary glimpse of Mrs. Smith-Lessing's
pale face as the car flashed by, a weird little silhouette, come and
gone in a second. Away ahead I saw the mud and rain from the pools fly
up into the air in a constant stream caught in the broad white glare of
the brilliant search-lamps. Then the car turned a corner and vanished.

I was tired, yet I found the change from the close railway carriage, and
the tension of the last few hours, delightful. The road along which I
trudged ran straight to the sea, the