there
had been something that drove him on, that allured him, that made him
feel as he had felt to-night. But for the accident of his having seen
that letter from poor foolish Jack Tosswill he might, by this time
to-morrow, have been in the position of Enid Crofton's future husband!
The knowledge turned him sick.

Just now he felt that he never wished to see her again.

As he walked on, leaving the village behind him, and emerging on the
great common which stretched between Beechfield and the nearest railway
station--he asked himself whether or no it was possible that she had
genuinely fallen in love with Jack Tosswill?

And then he stayed his steps suddenly. He had remembered the look of
terror, the look of being "found out," which had crossed her face, when
she had realised that he had seen that fatally revealing corner of her
love-letter.

Why had she looked like that? And then, all at once, he knew. It was for
him that Enid Crofton had come to Beechfield, for him, or rather for his
money. He felt hideously disturbed as certain tiny past happenings
crowded on his memory. He felt he would give half his possessions were it
possible thereby to transplant The Trellis House hundreds of miles from
Beechfield.

He threw a rueful thought to Jack Tosswill. Miss Pendarth had been right,
after all. That sort of experience might well embitter the whole of the
early life of such a priggish, self-centred youth; and while he was
chewing the cud of these painful, troubling thoughts there came a woman's
voice out of the darkness.

"Does this lead on into Beechfield, sir? I want to find The Trellis
House. I've been there once before, but it was broad daylight then."

Radmore peered at the speaker: a thin, medium-sized woman she seemed to
be; obviously not one of the country folk--by her accent a Londoner.

"Go straight on, and in about a quarter of an hour, you'll find The
Trellis House on your right. But you'd better enquire as soon as you get
into the village itself. Is it Mrs. Crofton's house that you want to
find?"

"Yes, that's the place I'm bound for," said the woman.

"Look here," said Radmore good-naturedly. "I was only going for a walk.
I'll take you along to The Trellis House. You might easily miss it."

He turned, and they began walking along the road side by side.

"I suppose Mrs. Crofton 'asn't gone away yet, I'm sure to find 'er there,
sir?" There was a doubting, almost a resentful, tone in the mincing
vo