er, and I am
late already."

She kept by my side.

"Come in for a few moments," she begged, in a low tone. "I want to talk
to you."

"Not the old subject, I hope," I remarked.

She looked around with an air of mystery.

"Do you know that some one is making inquiries about--that man?"

"I always thought it possible," I answered, "that his friends might turn
up some time or other."

We were opposite the front of the Moyats' house. She opened the door
and beckoned me to follow. I hesitated, but eventually did so. She led
the way into the drawing-room, and carefully closed the door after us.

"Mr. Ducaine," she said, "I mean it, really. There is some one in the
village making inquiries--about--the man who was found dead."

"Well," I said, "that is not very surprising, is it? His friends were
almost certain to turn up sooner or later."

"His friends! But do you know who it is?" she asked.

I sank resignedly into one of Mrs. Moyat's wool-work covered chairs.
An absurd little canary was singing itself hoarse almost over my head.
I half closed my eyes. How many more problems was I to be confronted
with during these long-drawn-out days of mystery?

"Oh, I do not know," I declared. "I am sure I do not care. I am sorry
that I ever asked you for one moment to keep your counsel about the
fellow. I never saw him, I do not know who he was, I know nothing about
him. And I don't want to, Miss Moyat. He may have been prince or
pedlar for anything I care."

"Well, he wasn't an ordinary person, after all," she declared, with an
air of mystery. "Have you heard of the lady who's taken Braster Grange?
She's a friend of Lord Blenavon's. He's always there."

"I have heard that there is such a person," I answered wearily.

"She's been making inquiries right and left--everywhere. There's a
notice in yesterday's _Wells Gazette_, and a reward of fifty pounds for
any one who can give any information about him sufficient to lead to
identification."

"If you think," I said, "that you can earn the pounds, pray do not let
me stand in your way."

She looked at me with a fixed intentness which I found peculiarly
irritating.

"You don't think that I care about the fifty pounds," she said, coming
over and standing by my chair.

"Then why take any notice of the matter at all?" I said. "All that you
can disclose is that he came from the land and not from the sea, and
that he asked where I lived. Why trouble yourself or me about the
m