ed to the
Christian Faith. Even if he had, it struck me as being highly improbable
that he would have been the possessor of such princely treasure, and
even supposing that to be true, that he would, at his death, leave it to
such a man as Kitwater. No, I fancied if we could only get at the truth
of the story, we should find that it was a good deal more picturesque,
not to use a harsher term, than we imagined. For a moment I had almost
been tempted to believe that the stones were Hayle's property, and that
these two men were conducting their crusade with the intention of
robbing him of them. Yet, on maturer reflection, this did not fit in.
There was the fact that they had certainly been mutilated as they
described, and also their hatred of Hayle to be weighed in one balance,
while Hayle's manifest fear of them could be set in the other.

"If I am not mistaken that is your step, Mr. Fairfax," said the blind
man, stopping suddenly in his walk, and turning his sightless face in my
direction. "It's wonderful how the loss of one's sight sharpens one's
ears. I suppose you met Margaret on the road."

"I met Miss Kitwater in the churchyard," I replied.

"A very good meeting-place," he chuckled sardonically. "It's where most
of us meet each other sooner or later. Upon my word, I think the dead
are luckier than the living. In any case they are more fortunate than
poor devils like Codd and myself. But I am keeping you standing, won't
you sit down somewhere and tell me your news? I have been almost
counting the minutes for your arrival. I know you would not be here
to-day unless you had something important to communicate to me. You have
found Hayle?"

He asked the question with feverish eagerness, as if he hoped within a
few hours to be clutching at the other's throat. I could see that his
niece noticed it too, and that she recoiled a little from him in
consequence. I thereupon set to work and told them of all that had
happened since I had last seen them, described my lucky meeting with
Hayle at Charing Cross, my chase after him across London, the trick he
had played me at Foxwell's Hotel, and my consequent fruitless journey to
Southampton.

"And he managed to escape you after all," said Kitwater. "That man would
outwit the Master of all Liars Himself. He is out of England by this
time, and we shall lose him."

"He has not escaped me," I replied quietly. "I know where he is, and I
have got a man on his track."

"Then where