not!" he laughed, but the laughter was shaky. "Here we are!
We'll soon get the bicycle fixed up."

Ellice stood watching him while with a borrowed spanner he adjusted the
handle-bars.

What did this man know of Joan, and why had Joan cut him dead? Perhaps
they were old lovers, perhaps a thousand things? Ellice shrugged her
shoulders. It was nothing to her. If she must fight this woman, this
rich, beautiful woman for her love's sake, she would not fight with
underhand weapons. There would be no digging in pasts, for Ellice.

"Thank you," she said. "You have been very kind!" Again she held out her
hand to him, and gave him a frank and friendly smile. "I hope that we
shall meet again."

"I think," he said, "that we shall often meet again."

He stood and watched the graceful little figure of her as she sped
swiftly down the road, then turned and walked slowly back towards Mrs.
Bonner's cottage.

So Joan had seen him, and had cut him dead.

"If I was not so dead sure, so dead certain sure that Slotman will turn
up eventually, I would clear out," Hugh thought to himself. "I'd go back
to Hurst Dormer and stick there, whether I wanted to or not."

Ellice, pedalling homeward, went more slowly now she was clear of the
village. She wanted to think it all over in her mind, and arrived at
conclusions. At first she had thought that Joan Meredyth and Johnny too
had deliberately cut her dead. But that was folly; they had cut her, but
then in this matter she had not counted. She was gifted with plenty of
common-sense. Connie's teaching and precept had not gone for nothing with
the girl.

"Joan Meredyth knows that man, and he knows her."

Half a mile out of Little Langbourne, Ellice put on the brake and
alighted.

"How is Snatcher?" she asked.

Rundle touched his hat. A big and fearsome-looking man was Rundle.
Village mothers frightened small children into good behaviour by
threatening them that Rundle would come and take them away--a name to
conjure with. Little Langbourne only knew peace and felt secure when
Rundle was undergoing one of his temporary retirements from activity,
when, as a guest of the State, he cursed his luck and the gamekeepers
who had been one too many for him.

But there was nothing fearsome about the Rundle who faced little Ellice
Brand. There was a smile on the man's lips, in his eyes a look of
intense gratitude.

Ragged and disreputable person that he was, he would have lain down and
allowed th