He flung the envelope aside and began to read the contents. It opened abruptly, without any form of address, and it was written in a hand that showed plain signs of great distress and agitation: "You are in great danger. I don't know what. I heard them talking. They spoke as though something threatened you, something you could not escape. Be careful, very careful. You asked me once if I had ever heard a man with a high, squeaky voice, and I did not answer. It was to a man with a voice like that I gave the packing-case I took away from here the night you came. Do you remember? He was here all last night, I think. I saw him go very early. He is Mr. Walter Dunsmore. I saw him that day at Wreste Abbey, and I knew I had seen him before. This morning I recognized him. I am sure because he hurt his hand on the packing-case lid, and I saw the mark there still. He and my stepfather were talking all night, I think I couldn't hear everything. There is a General Dunsmore. Something is to happen to him at three o'clock and then to you later, and they both laughed a great deal because they think you will be blamed for whatever happens to General Dunsmore. He is to be enticed somewhere to meet you, but you are not to be there till four, too late. I am afraid, more afraid than ever I have been. What shall I do? I think they are making plans to do something awful. I don't know what to do. I think my stepfather suspects I know something, he keeps looking, looking, smiling all the time. Please come back and take mother and me away, for I think he means to kill us both."

There was no signature, but written like an afterthought across one corner of the note were the scribbled words:

"You told me something once, I don't know if you meant it." And then, underneath, was the addition—"He never stops smiling."

Twice over Dunn read this strange, disturbing message, and then a third time, and he made a little gesture of annoyance for it did not seem to him that the words he read made sense, or else it was that his brain no longer worked normally, and could not interpret them.

"Oh, but that's absurd," he said aloud.

He looked all around him, surprised to see that the face of the country-side had not changed in any way, but was all just as it had been before this letter had been put into his hands.

He began to read a third, but stopped half-way through the first sentence.

"Then it's Walter all the time," he muttered. "Walter—Walter!"



CHAPTER XXVI. A RACE AGAINST TIME

Even when he had said this aloud it was still as though he could not grasp its full meaning.

"Walter," he repeated vaguely. "Walter."

His thoughts, that had seemed as frozen by the sudden shock of the tremendous revelation so unconsciously made to him by Ella, began to stir and move again, and almost at once, with an extraordinary and abnormal rapidity.

As a drowning man is said to see flash before his eyes the whole history and record of his life, so now Dunn saw the whole story of his life-long friendship with Walter pictured before him.

For when he was very small, Walter had been to him like an elder brother, and when he was older, it was Walter who had taught him to ride and to shoot, to hunt and to fish, and when he was at school it was Walter to whom he looked up as the dashing young man of the world, who knew all life's secrets, and when he was at college it was Walter who had helped him out of the inevitable foolish scrapes into which it is the custom of the undergraduate to fall.

Then, when he had come to man's estate, Walter had still been his confidential friend and adviser. In Walter's hand he had been accustomed to leave everything during his absences on his hunting and exploring trips; and at what time during this long and kindly association of good-fellowship had such black hate and poison of envy bred in Walter's heart?

"Walter!" he said aloud once more, and he uttered the name as though it were a cry of anguish.

Yet, too, even in his utter bewilderment and surprise, it seemed strange to him that he had never once suspected, never dreamed, never once had the shadow of a suspicion.

Little things, trifling things, a word, an accent, a phrase that had passed at the time for a lest, a thousand such memories came back to him now with a new and terrible significance.

For, after all, Walter was in the direct line. Only just a few lives stood between him and a great inheritance, a great position. Perhaps long brooding on what might so easily be had made him mad.

Dunn remembered now, too, that it was Walter who had discovered that first murderous attempt which had first put them on their guard, but perhaps he had discovered it only because he knew of it, and when it failed, saw his safest plan was to be foremost in tracking it out.

And it was Walter who had last seen poor Charley Wright alone, and far from Bittermeads. But perhaps that was a lie to confuse the search for the missing man, and a reason why that search had failed so utterly up to the moment of Dunn's own grim discovery in the attic.

With yet a fresh shock so that he reeled as he stood with the impact of the thought, Dunn realized that all this implied that every one of his precautions had been rendered futile that of all his elaborate plans not one would take effect since all had been entrusted to the care of the very man against whom they were aimed.

It was Walter for whom the net had been laid in Ottam's Wood; and Walter to whom had been entrusted the task of drawing that net tight at the right moment.

It was Walter's friends and agents who were to break into Wreste Abbey, and Walter to whom had been entrusted the task of defeating and capturing them. It was Walter from whom Ella stood in most danger if her action that morning had been observed, and it was Walter to whom he had given the task of protecting her.

At this thought, he turned and began to run as fast as he could in the direction of Bittermeads.

At all costs she must be saved, she who had exposed the whole awful plot. For a hundred yards or so he fled, swift as the wind, till on a sudden he stopped dead with the realization of the fact that every yard he took that way took him further and further from Ottam's Wood.

For there was danger there, too—grim and imminent—and sentences in Ella's hasty letter that bore now to his new knowledge a deep significance she had not dreamed of.

As when a flash of lightning lights all the landscape up and shows the traveller dreadful dangers that beset his path, so a wave of intuition told Dunn clearly the whole conspiracy; so that he saw it all, and saw how every detail was to be fitted in together. His father, General Dunsmore, was to be murdered first at the Brook Bourne Spring, to which he was being lured; and afterwards, when Dunn arrived, he was to be murdered, too. And on him, dead and unable to defend himself, the blame of his father's death would be laid. It would not be difficult to manage. Walter would arrange it all as neatly as he had been accustomed to arrange the Dunsmore business affairs placed in his hands for settlement.

A forged letter or two, Dunn's own revolver used to shoot the old man with and then placed in Dunn's dead hand when his own turn had come, convincing detail like that would be easy to arrange. Why, the very fact of his disguise, the tangled beard that he had grown to hide his features with, would appear conclusive. Any coroner's jury would return a verdict of wilful murder against his memory on that one fact alone.

Walter would see to that all right. A little false evidence apparently reluctantly given would be added, and all would be kneaded together into the one substance till the whole guilt of all that happened would appear to lie solely on his shoulders.

As for motive, it would simply be put forward that he had been in a hurry to succeed his uncle. And very likely some tale of a quarrel with his father or something of that sort would be invented, and would go uncontradicted since there would be no one to contradict it.

And most probably what was contemplated at Wreste Abbey was no ordinary burglary, but the assassination of old Lord Chobham, of which the guilt would also be set down to him.

Very clearly now he realized that this tremendous plot was aimed, not only at life, but at honour—that not only was his life required, but also that he should be thought a murderer.

With the realization of the danger that threatened at Wreste Abbey he turned and began to run back in the direction where it lay, that he might take timely warning there, but he did not run a dozen strides when he remembered Ella again, and paused.

Surely he must think of her first, alone and unprotected. For she was the woman he loved; and besides, she had summoned him to her help, and then she was a woman, and at least, the others were men.

All this flood of thoughts, this intuitive grasping of a situation terrible beyond conception, almost unparalleled in bloody and dreadful horror, passed through his mind with extreme rapidity.

Once more he turned and began to run—to run as he had never run before, for now he saw that all depended on the speed with which he could cover the eight miles that lay between him and Ottam's Wood, whether he could still save his father or not.

The district was lonely in the extreme, there was no human habitation near, no place where he could obtain any help or any swift means of conveyance. His one hope must be in his speed, his feet must be swift to save, not only his own life and his father's, but his honour, too, and Ella and his old uncle as well; and all—all hung upon the speed with which he could cover the eight long miles that lay between him and Brook Bourne Spring in Ottam's Wood. Even as he ran, as he thought of Ella, he came abruptly to a pause, wrung with sudden anguish. For each fleet stride he was making towards Brook Bourne Spring was taking him further and further away from Bittermeads just as before each step to Bittermeads had been taking him further from Ottam's Wood.

He began to run again, even faster than before, and it was towards Ottam's Wood that he ran, each step taking him further from Bittermeads and further from the woman he loved in her bitter need and peril, who looked to him for the help he could not give. With pain and anguish he ran on, ran as men have seldom run—as seldom so much was hung upon their running.

On and on he sped, fleet as the wind, fleet as the light breeze that blew lightly by. A solitary villager trudging on some errand in this lonely place, tells to this day the tale of the bearded, wild-eyed man who raced so madly by him, raced on and down the long, straight road till his figure dwindled and vanished in the distance.

A shepherd boy went home with a tale of a strange thing he had seen of a man running so fast it seemed he was scarcely in sight before he was gone again.

And except for those two and one other none saw him at all and he ran his race alone beneath the skies, across the bare country side.

It was at a spot where the path ran between two high hedges that he came upon a little herd of cows a lad was driving home.

It seemed impossible to pass through that tangle of horns and tails and plunging hoofs, and so indeed it was, but Dunn took another way, and with one leap, cleared the first beast clean and alighted on the back of the second.

Before the startled beast could plunge away he leaped again from the vantage of its back and landed on the open ground beyond and so on, darting full speed past the staring driver, whose tale that he told when he got home caused him to go branded for years as a liar.

On and on Dunn fled, without stay or pause, at the utmost of his speed every second of time, every yard of distance. For he knew he had need of every ounce of power he possessed or could call to his aid, since he knew well that all, all, might hang upon a second less or more, and now four miles lay behind him and four in front.

Still on he raced with labouring lungs and heart near to bursting —onward still, swift, swift and sure, and now there were six miles behind and only two in front, and he was beginning to come to a part of the country that he knew.

Whether he was soon or late he had no idea or how long it was that he had raced like this along the lonely country road at the full extremity and limit of his strength.

He dared not take time to glance at his watch, for he knew the fraction of a second he would thus lose might mean the difference between in time and too late. On he ran still and presently he left the path and took the fields.

But he had forgotten that though the distance might be shorter the going would be harder, and on the rough grass he stumbled, and across the bare ground damp earth clung to his boots and hindered him as though each foot had become laden with lead.

His speed was slower, his effort greater if possible, and when he came to a hedge he made no effort to leap, but crashed through it as best he could and broke or clambered or tumbled a path for himself.

Now Ottam's Wood was very near, and reeling and staggering like a man wounded to the death but driven by inexorable fate, he plunged on still, and there was a little froth gathering at the corners of his mouth and from one of his nostrils came a thin trickle of blood.

Yet still he held on, though in truth he hardly knew any longer why he ran or what his need for haste, and as he came to the wood round a spur where a cluster of young beeches grew, he saw a tall, upright, elderly man walking there, well-dressed and of a neat, soldier-like appearance.

"Hallo—there you are—father—" he gasped and fell down, prone unconscious.



CHAPTER XXVII. FLIGHT AND PURSUIT

When he came to himself he was lying on his back, and bending over him was his father's familiar face, wearing an expression of great surprise and wonder, and still greater annoyance.

"What is the matter?" General Dunsmore asked as soon as he saw that his son's senses were returning to him. "Have you all gone mad together? You send me a mysterious note to meet you here at three, you turn up racing and running like an escaped lunatic, and with a disgusting growth of hair all over your face, so that I didn't know you till you spoke, and then there's Walter dodging about in the wood here like a poacher hiding from the keepers. Are you both quite mad, Rupert?"

"Walter," Rupert repeated, lifting himself on one hand, "Walter—have you seen him?"

"Over there," said the general, nodding towards the right. "He was dodging and creeping about for all the world like some poaching rascal. I waved, but he didn't see me, and when I tried to overtake him I lost sight of him somehow in the trees, and found I had come right out of my way for Brook Bourne Spring."

"Thank God for that," said Rupert fervently as a picture presented itself to him of his unsuspecting father trying in that lonely wood to find and overtake the man whose murderous purpose was aimed at his life.

"What do you mean?" snapped the general. "And why have you made such a spectacle of yourself with all that beard? Why, I didn't know you till you spoke—there's Walter there. What makes him look like that?"

For Walter had just come out of the wood about fifty yards to their right, and when he saw them talking together he understood at once that in some way or another all his plans had failed.

He was looking at them through a gap in some undergrowth that hid most of his body, but showed his head and shoulders plainly, and as he stood there watching them his face was like a fiend's.

"Walter," the general shouted, and to his son Rupert he said: "The boy's ill."

Walter moved forward from among the trees. He had a gun in his hand, and he flung it forward as though preparing to fire, and at the same moment Rupert Dunsmore drew from his pocket the pistol Deede Dawson had given him and fired himself.

But at the very moment that he pulled the trigger the general struck up his arm so that the bullet flew high and harmless through the tops of the trees.

Walter stepped back again into the wood, and Rupert said:

"You don't know what you have done, father."

"You are mad, mad," the general gasped.

His face was very pale, and he trembled a little, for though he had heard many bullets whistle by his ears, that had happened in action against an enemy, and was altogether different from this. He put out his hand in an attempt to take the pistol that Rupert easily evaded.

"Give it to me," he said. "I saved his life; you might have killed him."

"Yes, you saved him, father," Rupert muttered, thinking to himself that the saving of Walter's life might well mean the loss of Ella's, since very likely the failure of their plots would be at once attributed by the conspirators to her. "Father, I never wrote that letter you say you had. Walter forged it to get you here, where he meant to kill us both. That's why he looked like that, that's why he had his gun."

General Dunsmore only stared blankly at him for a moment.

"Kill me? Kill you? What for?" he gasped.

"So that he might become Lord Chobham of Wreste Abbey instead of Lord Chobham's poor relation," answered Rupert. "The poison attempt on uncle which Walter discovered was first of all his own doing; it was through him Charley Wright lost his life. He has committed at least one other murder. Today he meant to kill both of us. Then he would have been heir to the title and estates, and when uncle died he would have been Lord Chobham."

"Nonsense, absurd, impossible. You're mad, quite mad," the general stammered. "Why, he would have been hanged at once."

"Not if he could have fixed the blame elsewhere," Rupert answered. "That was to have been my part; it was carefully arranged to make it seem I was responsible for it all. I haven't time to explain now. I don't think he is coming back. I expect he is only loaded with small shot, and he doesn't dare try a long range shot or come near now he knows I'm ready for him."

"But it's—it's impossible—Walter," stammered the general. "Impossible."

"The impossible so often happens," answered Rupert, and handed his pistol to him. "You must trust me, father, and do what I tell you. Take this pistol in case you are attacked on the way home. You may be, but I don't think it's likely. Get the motor out and go straight to Wreste Abbey. An attempt on uncle's life will be made tonight, if they still carry out their plans, about dinner-time tonight. See that every possible precaution is taken. See to that first. Then send help as soon as you can to Bittermeads, a house on the outskirts of Ramsdon; any one there will tell you where it is."

"But what are you going to do?" General Dunsmore asked.

"I'm going to find Walter, if he's still hiding in the wood here, as he may be," Rupert answered. "I should like a little chat with him." For a moment he nearly lost his self-control, and for a single moment there showed those fiery and tempestuous passions he was keeping now in such stern repression. "Yes a little talk with him, just us two," he said. "And if he's cleared out, or I can't find him I'm going straight on to Bittermeads. There's some one there who may be in danger, so the sooner I am there the better."

"But wait a moment," the general cried. "Are you armed?"

"Yes, with my hands, I shall want no more when Walter and I meet again," Rupert answered, and, without another word, plunged into the wood at the spot where Walter had vanished.

At first the track of Walter's flying footsteps was plain enough for he had fled full speed, panic having overtaken him when he saw Rupert and his father together and understood that in some way his deep conspiracy had failed and his treachery become known.

For a little distance, therefore, he had crashed through bracken and undergrowth, heedless of all but the one need that was upon him to flee away and escape while there was yet time. But, after a while, his first panic subsiding, he had gone more carefully, and, as the weather had been very dry of late, when he came to open ground his footmarks were scarcely visible.

In such spots Rupert could make but slow progress, and he was handicapped, too, by the fact, that all the time he had to be on his guard lest from some unsuspected quarter his enemy should come upon him unawares.

For, indeed, this enterprise he had undertaken in the flood tide of his passion and fierce anger was dangerous enough since he, quite weaponless, was following up a very desperate armed man who would know that for him there could be henceforth no question of mercy.

But there was that burning in Rupert's heart that made him heedless of all danger, and indeed, he who for mere love of sport and adventure, had followed a wounded tiger into the jungle and tracked a buffalo through thick reeds, was not likely to draw back now.

Once he thought he had succeeded, for he saw a bush move and he rushed at once upon it. But when he reached it there was nothing there, and the ground about was hard and bare, showing no marks to prove any one had lately been near. And once he saw a movement in the midst of some bracken and caught a glimpse of what seemed like Walter's coat, so that he was sure he had him at last, and he shouted and ran forward.

But again no one was there, though the bracken was all trampled and beaten down. The tracks Walter had made in going were plain, too, but Rupert lost them almost at once and could not find them again, and when he came a little later to the further edge of the wood, he decided to waste no more time, but to make his way direct to Bittermeads so as at least to make sure of Ella's safety.

He told himself that he had failed badly in woodcraft and, indeed, he had been too fierce and hot in his pursuit to show his wonted skill.

The plan that had been in his mind from the moment when he left his father was to take advantage of the fact that on this edge of the wood was situated a farm belonging to Lord Chobham, where horses were bred and where he was well known.

Some of these horses were sure to be out in the fields, and it would be easy for him, wasting no time in explanation, to catch one of them, mount bare-backed and ride through the New Plantation—the New Plantation was a hundred years old, but still kept that name—over the brow of the hill beyond, swim the canal in the valley, and so straight across-country to Ramsdon.

Riding thus direct he would save time and distance, and arrive more quickly than by going the necessary distance to secure a motor-car which would have also to take a much more circuitous route.

He jumped the hedge, therefore, that lay at the wood's edge and slid down the steep bank into the sunken road beyond where he found himself standing in front of Walter, who held in his hands a gun levelled straight at Rupert's heart.

"I could have shot you time after time in there you know," he said quietly. "From behind that bush and from out of the bracken, too. I don't know why I didn't. I suppose it wasn't worth while, now I shall never be Lord Chobham."

He flung down his gun as he spoke and sprang on a bicycle that he had held leaning against his legs.

Quickly he sped away, leaving Rupert standing staring after him, realizing that his life had hung upon the bending of Walter's finger, and that Walter, with at least two cold-blooded murders to his account, or little more to hope for in this world or the next, had now inexplicably spared him for whose destruction, of life and honour alike, he had a little before been laying such elaborate, hellish plans.

With a gesture of his hands that proved he failed to understand, Rupert ran on and crossed a field to where he saw some horses grazing.

One he knew immediately for one of his father's mares, and he knew her also for an animal of speed and endurance.

The mare knew him, too, and suffered him to mount her without difficulty, and without a soul on the farm being aware of what was happening and without having to waste any precious time on explanations or declaring his identity, Rupert rode away, sitting the mare bare-backed, through the New Plantation towards Bittermeads, where he hoped, arriving unexpectedly, to be able to save Ella before the danger he was sure threatened her came to a head.

Of one thing he was certain. Deede Dawson would never do what his companion in villainy had just done, he would spare no one; fierce, malignant and evil to the last, his one thought if he knew they had and vengeance approached would be to do what harm he could before the end.



CHAPTER XXVIII. BACK AT BITTERMEADS

When, riding fast, Rupert Dunsmore came in sight of Bittermeads he experienced a feeling of extreme relief. Though what he had feared he did not quite know, for he did not see that any alarm could have reached here yet or any hint come to Deede Dawson of the failure of all his plotting.

Even if Walter had had the idea of returning to give his accomplice warning, he could not have come by the road on his bicycle as quickly as Rupert had ridden across country. And that Walter would spend either time or thought on Deede Dawson did not appear in any way probable.

To Rupert, therefore, it seemed certain that Deede Dawson could know nothing as yet. But all the same it was an immense relief to see the house again and to know that in a few moments he would be there.

He tied up the mare to a convenient tree, and with eyes that were quick and alert and every nerve and muscle ready for all emergencies, he drew near the house.

All was still and quiet, no smoke came from the chimneys, there was no sign of life or movement anywhere. For a moment he hesitated and then made his way round to the back, hoping to find Mrs. Barker there and perhaps obtain from her information as to the whereabouts of Deede Dawson and of Ella and her mother.

For it seemed to him it would be his best plan to get the two women quietly out of the way if he could possibly do so before making any attempt to deal with Deede Dawson or letting him know of his return.

For the mere fact that he was back again so soon would show at once that something had gone seriously wrong, and once Deede Dawson knew that, he would be, Rupert well realized, in a very desperate and reckless mood and ripe for committing any mischief that he could.

Cautiously Rupert opened the back door and found himself in the stone-paved passage that ran between the kitchen and the scullery and pantry. Everything seemed very quiet and still, and there was no sign of Mrs. Barker nor any appearance that she had been that morning busy about her usual tasks. The kitchen fire was not lighted, a pile of unwashed crockery stood on the table, there had apparently been no attempt to prepare any meals.

Frowning uneasily, for all this did not seem to him of good omen, Rupert Went quickly on to the living rooms.

They were unoccupied and did not seem to have been much used that day; and in the small breakfast-room Deede Dawson had been accustomed to consider his special apartment, his favourite little travelling chessboard stood on the table with pieces in position on it.

There was a letter, too, he had begun but not finished, to the editor of a chess-column in some paper, apparently to the effect that a certain problem "cooked," and that by such and such a move "the mate for the first player that appeared certain was unexpectedly and instantly transferred in this dramatic manner into a mate for his opponent."

The words seemed somehow oddly appropriate to Rupert, and he smiled grimly as he read them and then all at once his expression changed and his whole attitude became one of intense watchfulness and readiness.

For his quick eye had noted that the ink on the nib of the pen that this letter had been written with, was not yet dry.

Then Deede Dawson must have been here a moment or two ago and must have gone in a hurry. That could only mean he was aware of Rupert's return and was warned and suspicious. It is perhaps characteristic of Rupert's passionate and eager temperament that only now did it occur to him that he was quite unarmed and that without a weapon of any kind he was matching himself against as reckless and as formidable a criminal as had ever lived.

For want of anything better he picked up the heavy glass inkpot standing on the table, emptied the contents in a puddle on the floor, and held the inkpot itself ready in his hand.

He listened intently, but heard no sound—no sound at all in the whole house, and this increased his apprehensions, for he knew well that Deede Dawson was a man always the most dangerous when most silent.

It was possible of course that he had fled, but not likely. He would not go, Rupert thought, till he had made his preparations and not without a last effort to take revenge on those who had defeated him and in this dramatic way turned the mate he had expected to secure into a win for his opponent.

Still Rupert listened intently, straining his ears to catch the least sound to hint to him where his enemy was, for he knew that if he failed to discover him his first intimation of his proximity might well come in the shape of the white-hot sting of a bullet, rending flesh and bone.

Then, too, where was Ella, and where was her mother?

There was something inexpressibly sinister in the utter quietness of the house, a quietness not at all of peace and rest but of a brooding, angry threat.

Still he could hear nothing, and he left the room, very quickly and noiselessly, and he made sure there was no one anywhere in any of these rooms on the ground floor.

He locked the front door and the back to make sure no one should enter or leave too easily, and returned on tiptoe, moving to and fro like a shadow cast by a changing light, so swift and noiseless were his movements.

For a little he remained crouching against the side of the stairway, listening for any sound that might float down to him from above.

But none came—and on a sudden, in one movement, as it were, he ran up the stairs and crouched down on the topmost one so that any bullet aimed at him as he appeared might perhaps fly overhead.

But none was fired; there was still no sound at all, no sign that the house held any living creature beside himself. He began to think that Deede Dawson must have sent the two women away and now have gone himself.

But there was the pen downstairs with ink still wet upon the nib to prove that he had been here recently, and again very suddenly Rupert leaped to his feet and ran noiselessly down the corridor and entered quickly into Ella's room.

He had not been in it since the night of his arrival at Bittermeads, but it appeared to him extraordinarily familiar and every little object in it of ornament or use seemed to speak to him softly of Ella's gracious presence.

Of Ella herself there was no sign, but he noticed that the tassel at the end of the window blind cord was moving as if recently disturbed.

The movement was very slight, almost imperceptible, indeed, but it existed; and it proved that some one must very shortly before have been standing at the window. He moved to it and looked out.

The view commanded the road by which he had approached Bittermeads, and he wondered if Ella had been standing there and had seen his approach, and then had concealed herself for some reason.

But, if so, why and where was she hiding? And where was Deede Dawson? And why was everything so silent and so still?

He turned from the window, and as he did so he caught a faint sound in the passage without.

Instantly he crouched behind the bed, the heavy glass inkpot that was his one weapon poised in his hand.

The sound did not come again, but as he waited, he saw the door begin to open very slowly, very quietly.

Lower still he crouched, the inkpot ready to throw, every nerve taut and tense for the leap at his foe's throat with which he meant to follow it up. The door opened a little more, very slowly, very carefully. It was wide enough now to admit of entry, and through the opening there sidled, pale and red-eyed, Ella's mother, looking so frail and feeble and so ruffled and disturbed she reminded Rupert irresistibly of a frightened hen.

She edged her way in as though she dared not open the door too widely, and Rupert hesitated in great perplexity and vexation, for he saw that he must show himself, and he feared that she would announce his presence by flight or screams.

But he could not possibly get away without her knowledge; and besides, she might be able to give him useful information.

He stood up quickly, with his finger to his lips. "Hush!" he said. "Not a sound—not a sound." The warning seemed unnecessary, for Mrs. Dawson appeared too paralysed with fear to utter even the faintest cry as she dropped tremblingly on the nearest chair.

"Hush! Hush!" he said. "Where is Ella?"

"I—I don't know," quavered Mrs. Dawson.

"When did you see her last?"

"A little while ago," Mrs. Dawson faltered. "She went upstairs. She didn't come down, so I thought I would try to find her."

"Where's Deede Dawson?" Rupert asked.

"I—I don't know," she quavered again.

"When did you see him last?"

"I—I—a little while ago," she faltered. "He went upstairs—he didn't come down again. I thought I would try to find her—him—I was so frightened when they didn't either of them come down again."

It was evident she was far too confused and upset to give any useful information of any nature, even if she knew anything.

"Deede's been so strange," she said. "And Ella too. I think it's very hard on me—dreams, too. He said he wanted her to help him get a packing-case ready he had to send away somewhere. I don't know where. I don't think Ella wanted to—"

"A packing-case?" Rupert muttered. "What for?"

"It's what they came upstairs to do," Mrs. Dawson said. "And—and—" She began to cry feebly. "It's my nerves," she said. "He's looked so strange at us all day—and neither of them has come down again."



CHAPTER XXIX. THE ATTIC

It was evident that more had occurred to make Mrs. Dawson afraid that she would, or perhaps could, say.

"Wait here," Rupert said to her. "Don't stir." The command seemed superfluous, for she had not at that moment the appearance of still possessing the power to move. Without speaking again, Rupert left the room and went quickly to the foot of the narrow stairs that led to the attics above.

He listened, crouching there, and heard nothing, and a cold fear came to him that perhaps Deede Dawson had done up above what he wished to do and then effected his escape while he himself had been lingering in Ella's room.

Adopting his plan of a rapid rush to disconcert the aim of any one who might be about to fire at him, he made a swift dash up the stairs and on the topmost one crouched down again and waited.

But still nothing happened, all was very quiet, and the door of one attic, the one which had been assigned to him as a bed-chamber, was wide open so that he could see into it and see that it was unoccupied.

But the doors of both the others were closed, and as he looked he made out in the gloom, for this landing by the attic was very badly-lighted by a small and awkwardly-placed skylight, a scattered dozen or so of hairpins, and a tortoiseshell comb such as he had seen sometimes in Ella's hair, lying on the floor near the door of the larger of the two attics, the one in which he remembered well he had found Deede Dawson on a certain night busy measuring and examining and empty packing-case.

With one quick rush he crossed the landing and flung himself at the door.

It opened at once, for it was not locked, and within he saw Deede Dawson, screw-driver in his hand, standing behind a large packing-case, the lid of which he had apparently that minute finished fastening down.

He looked up as Rupert entered thus precipitately, and he showed no sign of surprise or alarm.

"You're back early," he said. "Something gone wrong?"

"What are you doing? What's in there?" Rupert asked, looking at the packing-case, his mouth and lips so suddenly dry he found it difficult to speak at all.

Deede Dawson began to laugh, a low and dreadful laughter that had in it no trace of merriment at all, but only of mockery and malice.

It was such laughter as a devil from the nethermost pit might give vent to when he saw at last a good man yield to long temptation.

"What's in there?" Rupert said again, pointing to the packing-case, and it was as though his soul swooned within him for fear of what the answer might be.

"What do the children say?" Deede Dawson returned with his terrible smile. "I'll give you three guesses, isn't it? See if you can guess in three tries."

"What's in there?" Rupert asked the third time, and Deede Dawson laid down the screw-driver with which he had just driven home the last screw.

"Oh, see for yourself, if you want to," he said. "But you ought to know. You know what was in the other case I sent away from here, the one I got Ella to take in the car for me? I want you to take this one away now, the sooner it's away the better."

"That's it, is it?" Rupert muttered.

He no longer doubted, and for a moment all things swam together before him and he felt dizzy and a little sick, and so weak he staggered and nearly fell, but recovered himself in time.

The sensation passed and he saw Deede Dawson as it were a long way off, and between them the packing-case, huge, monstrous, and evil, like a thing of dread from some other world. Violent shudderings swept though him one after the other, and he was aware that Deede Dawson was speaking again.

"What did you say?" he asked vacantly, when the other paused.

"You look ill," Deede Dawson answered. "Anything wrong? Why have you come back so soon? Have you failed?"

Rupert passed his hand before his eyes to clear away the mist that hung there and that hampered his sight.

He perceived that Deede Dawson held his right hand in the pocket of his coat, grasping something that bulged out curiously.

He divined that it was a pistol, and that Deede Dawson was ready to shoot at any moment, but that he wished very greatly to know first of all what had happened and why Rupert had returned so soon and whether there was immediate necessity for flight or not.

That he was uneasy was certain, for his cold eyes showed a hesitation and a doubt such as Rupert had never seen in them before.

"I'll tell you what's happened," Rupert heard himself saying hoarsely. "If you'll tell me what's in there."

"A bargain, eh?" Deede Dawson said. "It's easy enough. You can look for yourself if you unscrew the lid, but then, after all, why should we take all that trouble?"

As he spoke his pistol showed in his hand, and at once the heavy glass inkpot Rupert had held all this time flew straight and true, and with tremendous force, at Deede Dawson's head.

He avoided it only by the extreme rapidity with which he dropped behind the packing-case, and it flew over his head and crashed against the centre panel of a big wardrobe that stood in one corner of the room, splitting the panel it struck from top to bottom.

Following it, Rupert hurled himself forward with one great spring, but agile as a cat that leaps away from the mastiff's teeth, Deede Dawson slipped from his grasp to the other side of the room. In doing so he knocked his arm against the corner of the packing-case, so that his revolver fell to the ground.

With a shout Rupert stooped and seized it, and straightened himself to see that Deede Dawson had already another revolver in his hand—a second one that he had drawn from an inner pocket.

They remained very still, watching each other intently, neither eager to fire, since both wished first to make the other speak. For Rupert desired very greatly that Deede Dawson should tell him where Ella was, and Deede Dawson needed that Rupert should explain what had gone wrong, and how imminent and great was the danger that therefore most likely threatened him.

Each knew, too, that the slightest movement he made would set the other shooting, and each realized that in that close and narrow space any exchange of shots must almost of necessity mean the death of both, since both were cool and deadly marksmen, well accustomed to the use of the revolver.

Deede Dawson was the first to speak.

"Well, what next?" he said. "If that inkpot of yours had hit me it would pretty well have knocked my brains out, and if I hadn't hit my elbow against the corner of the packing-case I would have had you shot through with holes like a sieve by now. So far the score's even. Let's chat a bit, and see if we can't come to some arrangement. Look, I'll show I trust you."

As he spoke he laid down, much to Rupert's surprise, and to his equal suspicion, his revolver on the top of a moth-eaten roll of old carpet that leaned against the wall near where he was standing.

"You see, I trust you," he said once more.

"Take your pistol up again," answered Rupert grimly. "I do not trust you."

"Ah, that's a pity." Deede Dawson smiled, making no effort to do as the other said. "You see, we are both good shots, and if we start blazing away at each other up here we shall both be leaking pretty badly before long. That's a prospect that has no attraction for me; I don't know if it has for you. But there are things I can tell you that might be interesting, and things you can tell me I want to know. Why not exchange a little information, and then separate calmly, rather than indulge in pistol practice that can only mean the death of us both? For if your first bullet goes though my brain I swear my first will be in your heart."

"Likely enough," agreed Rupert, "but worth while perhaps."

"Oh, that's fanaticism," Deede Dawson answered. "Flattering perhaps to me, but not quite reasonable, eh?"

"There's only one thing I want to know from you," Rupert said slowly.

"Then why not ask it, why not agree to the little arrangement I suggest, eh? Eh, Rupert Dunsmore?"

"You know me, then?"

"Oh, long enough."

"Where is Ella?"

Deede Dawson laughed again.

"That's a thing I know and you don't," he said. "Well, she's safe away in London by this time."

"That's a lie, for her mother's here still," answered Rupert, even though his heart leapt merely to hear the words.

"Unbelieving Thomas," smiled the other. "Well, then, she is where she is, and that you can find out for yourself. But I'll make another suggestion. We are both good shots, and if we start to fire we shall kill each other. I am certain of killing you, but I shan't escape myself. Well, then, why not toss for it? Equal chances for both, and certain safety for one. Will you toss me, the one who loses to give up his pistol to the other?"

"It seems to me a good idea," Deede Dawson argued. "Here we are watching each other like cats, and knowing that the least movement of either will start the other off, and both of us pulling trigger as hard as we can. My idea would mean a chance for one. Well, let's try another way; the best shot to win. You don't trust me, but I will you."

Leaving his pistol lying where he had put it down, he crossed the attic, and with a pencil he took from his pocket drew a circle on the panel of the wardrobe door that Rupert had split with the inkpot he had thrown.

In the centre of the circle he marked a dot, and turned smilingly to the frowning and suspicious Rupert.

"There you are," he said, and made another circle near the first one. "Now you put a bullet into the middle of this circle and I'll put one afterwards through the second circle, and the one who is nearest to the dots I've marked, wins. What have you to say to that? Seems to me better than our killing each other. Isn't it?"

"I think you're playing the fool for some reason of your own," answered Rupert. "There's only one thing I want to know from you. Where is Ella?"

"Let me know how you can shoot," answered Deede Dawson, "and I'll tell you, by all that's holy, I will."

Rupert hesitated. He did not understand all this, he could not imagine what motive was in Deede Dawson's mind, though it was certainly true enough that once they began shooting at each other neither man was at all likely to survive, for Rupert knew he would not miss and he did not think Deede Dawson would either.

Above all, there was the one thing he wished to know, the one consideration that weighed with him above all others—what had become of Ella? And this time there had been in Deede Dawson's voice an accent of twisted and malign sincerity that seemed to say he really would be willing to tell the truth about her if Rupert would gratify his whim about this sort of shooting-match that he was suggesting.

The purpose of it Rupert could not understand, but it did not seem to him there would be any risk of harm in agreeing, for Deede Dawson was standing so far away from his own weapon he could not well be contemplating any immediate mischief or treachery.

It did occur to him that the pistol he held might be loaded in one chamber only and that Deede Dawson might be scheming to induce him to throw away his solitary cartridge.

But a glance reassured him on that point.

"Let me see how you can shoot," Deede Dawson repeated, leaning carelessly with folded arms against the wall a little distance away. "And I promise you I'll tell you where Ella is."

Rupert lifted his pistol and was indeed on the very point of firing when he caught a glimpse of such evil triumph and delight in Deede Dawson's cold eyes that he hesitated and lowered the weapon, and at the same time, looking more closely, searching more intently for some indication of Deede Dawson's hidden purpose, he noticed, caught in the crack of the wardrobe door, a tiny shred of some blue material only just visible.

He remembered that sometimes of an afternoon Ella had been accustomed to wear a frock made of a material exactly like that of which so tiny a fragment showed now in the crack of the wardrobe door.



CHAPTER XXX. SOME EXPLANATIONS

He turned quickly towards Deede Dawson. Their eyes met, and in that mutual glance Rupert Dunsmore read that his suspicions were correct and Deede Dawson that his dreadful trap was discovered.

Neither spoke. For a brief moment they remained impassive, immobile, their eyes meeting like blows, and then Deede Dawson made one spring to seize again the revolver he had laid down in the hope of enticing Rupert into the awful snare prepared for him.

But quick as he was, Rupert was quicker still, and as Deede Dawson leaped he lifted his pistol and fired, though his aim was not at the man, but at the revolver lying on the top of the roll of carpet where Deede Dawson had placed it.

The bullet, for Rupert was a man who seldom missed, struck the weapon fair and whirled it, shattered and useless, to the floor. Deede Dawson, whose hand had been already outstretched to seize it, drew back with a snarl that was more like the cry of a trapped wolf than any sound produced from human lips.

Still, Rupert did not speak. With the smoking pistol in his hand he watched silently and steadily his helpless enemy who, for his part, was silent, too, and very still, for he felt that doom was close upon him.

Yet he showed not the least sign of fear, but only a fierce and sullen defiance.

"Shoot away, why don't you shoot?" he sneered. "Mind you don't miss. I trusted you when I put my revolver down and I was a fool, but I thought you would play fair."

Without a word Rupert tossed his pistol through the attic window.

They heard the tinkling fall of the glass, they heard more faintly the sound of the revolver striking the outhouse roof twenty feet below and rebounding thence to the paved kitchen yard beneath, and then all was quiet again.

"I only need my hands for you," said Rupert softly, as softly as a mother coos to her drowsy babe. "My hands for you."

For the first time Deede Dawson seemed to fear, for, indeed, there was that in Rupert Dunsmore's eyes to rouse fear in any man. With a sudden swift spring, Rupert leaped forward and Deede Dawson, not daring to abide that onslaught, turned and ran, screaming shrilly.

During the space of one brief moment, a dreadful and appalling moment, there was a wild strange hunting up and down the narrow space of that upper attic, cumbered with lumber and old, disused furniture.

Round and round Deede Dawson fled, screaming still in a high shrill way, like some wild thing in pain, and hard upon him followed Rupert, nor had they gone a second time about that room before Rupert had Deede Dawson in a fast embrace, his arms about the other's middle.

One last great cry Deede Dawson gave when Rupert seized him, and then was silent as Rupert lifted him and swung him high at arm's length.

As a child in play sports with its doll, so Rupert swung Deede Dawson twice about his head, round and round and then loosed him so that he went hurling through the air with awful force, like a stone shot from a catapult, clean through the window through which Rupert had the moment before tossed his pistol with but little more apparent effort.

Right through the window, bearing panes and sash with him, Deede Dawson flew with the impetus of that great throw and out beyond and down, turning over and over the while, down through the empty air to fall and be shattered like a piece of worthless crockery on the stone threshold of the outhouse door.

Surprised to find himself alone, Rupert put his hand to his forehead and looked vacantly around.

"My God, what have I done?" he thought.

He was trembling violently, and the fury of the passion that had possessed him and had given his mighty muscles a force more than human, was still upon him.

Going to the window, he looked out, for he did not quite know what had happened and from it he looked back at the wardrobe door.

"Oh, yes," he said. "Yes."

He ran to it and tore open the door and from within very tenderly and gently he lifted down the half-swooning Ella who, securely gagged and tightly bound, had been thrust into its interior to conceal her from him.

Hurriedly he freed her from her bonds and from the handkerchief that was tied over her mouth and holding her in his arms like a child, pressing her close to his heart, he carried her lightly out of that dreadful room.

Only once did she stir, only once did she speak, when lifting her pale, strained face to him she murmured very faintly something in which he just caught the words:

"Deede Dawson."

"He'll trouble us no more nor any one else, I think," answered Rupert, and she said no more but snuggled down in his arms as though with a feeling of perfect security and safety.

He took her to her own room and left her with her mother, and then went down to the hall and took a chair and sat at the front door.

All at once he felt very tired and one of his shoulders hurt him, for he had strained a muscle there rather badly.

His one desire was to rest, and he did not even trouble to go round to the back of the house to see what had happened to Deede Dawson, though indeed that was not a point on which he entertained much doubt.

For a long time he sat there quietly, till at last his father arrived in a motor-car from Wreste Abbey, together with a police-inspector from the county town whom he had picked up on the way.

Rupert took them into the room where Deede Dawson's chessmen and the board were still standing and told them as briefly as he could what had happened since the first day when he had left his home to try to trace out and defeat the plot hatched by Walter Dunsmore and Deede Dawson.

"You people wouldn't act," he said to the inspector. "You said there was no evidence, no proof, and I daresay you were right enough from the legal point of view. But it was plain enough to me that there was some sort of conspiracy against my uncle's life, I thought against my father's as well, but I was not sure of that at first. It was through poor Charley Wright I became so certain. He found out things and told me about them; but for him the first attempt to poison my uncle would have succeeded. Even then we had still no evidence to prove the reality of our suspicions, for Walter destroyed it, by accident, I thought at the time, purposely, as I know now. It was something Walter said that gave Charley the idea of coming here. Then he vanished. He must have roused their suspicions somehow, and they killed him. But again Walter put us all off the scent by his story of having seen Charley in London, so that it was there the search for him was made, and no one ever thought of Bittermeads. I never suspected Walter, such an idea never entered my head; but luckily I didn't tell him of my idea of coming to Bittermeads myself to try to find out what was really going on here. He knew nothing of where I was till I told him that day at Wreste Abbey, then of course he came over here at once. I thought it was anxiety for my safety, but I expect really it was to warn his friends. When I saw him here that night I told him every single thing, I trusted the carrying-out of everything I had arranged to him. If it hadn't been for a note Miss Cayley wrote me to warn me, I should have walked right into the trap and so would my father too."

The police-inspector asked a few questions and then made a search of the room which resulted in the discovery of quite sufficient proof of the guilt of Deede Dawson and of Walter Dunsmore.

Among these proofs was also a hastily-scribbled note from Walter that solved the mystery of John Clive's death. It was not signed, but both General Dunsmore and Rupert knew his writing and were prepared to swear to it. Beginning abruptly and scribbled on a torn scrap of paper, it ran:

"I found Clive where you said, lucky you got hold of the note and read it before she sent it, for no doubt she meant to warn him. Take care she gets no chance of the sort again. I did Clive's business all right. She saw me and I think recognized me from that time she saw me over the packing-case business, before I took it out to sink it at sea. At any rate, she ran off in a great hurry. If you aren't careful, she'll make trouble yet."

"Apparently," remarked the inspector when he had read this aloud, "the young lady was very luckily not watched closely enough and did make trouble for them. Could I see her, do you think?"

"I don't know, I'll go and ask," Rupert said.

Ella was still very shaken, but she consented to see the inspector, and they all went together to her room where she was lying on her bed with her mother fussing nervously about her.

She told them in as few words as possible the story of how she had always disliked and mistrusted the man whom so unfortunately her mother had married, and how gradually her suspicions strengthened till she became certain that he was involved in many unlawful deeds.

But always her inner certainty had fallen short of absolute proof, so careful had he been in all he did.

"I knew I knew," she said. "But there was nothing I really knew. And he made me do all sorts of things for him. I wouldn't have cared for myself, but if I tried to refuse he made mother suffer. She was very, very frightened of him, but she would never leave him. She didn't dare. There was one night he made me go very late with a packing-case full of silver things he had, and he wouldn't tell me where he had got them. I believe he stole them all, but I helped him pack them, and I took them away the night Mr. Dunsmore came and gave them to a man wearing a mask. My stepfather said it was just a secret family matter he was helping some friends in, and later on I saw the same man in the woods near here one day—the day Mr. Clive was killed by the poachers—and when he came another time to the house I thought I must try to find out what he wanted. I listened while they talked and they said such strange things I made up my mind to try to warn Mr. Dunsmore, for I was sure there was something they were plotting."

"There was indeed," said Rupert grimly. "And but for that warning you sent me they would have succeeded."

"Somehow they found out what I had done," Ella continued. "As soon as I got back he kept looking at me so strangely. I was afraid—I had been afraid a long time, for that matter—but I tried not to show it. In the afternoon he told me to go up to the attic. He said he wanted me to help him pack some silver. It was the same silver I had packed before; for some reason he had got it back again. This time I had to pack it in the little boxes, and after I had finished I waited up there till suddenly he ran in very quickly and looking very excited. He said I had betrayed them, and should suffer for it, and he took some rope and he tied me as tightly as he could, and tied a great handkerchief over my mouth, and pushed me inside the wardrobe and locked it. I think he would have killed me then only he was afraid of Mr. Dunsmore, and very anxious to know what had happened, and why Mr. Dunsmore had come home, and if there was any danger. And I was a long time there, and I heard a great noise, and then Mr. Dunsmore opened the door and took me out."



CHAPTER XXXI. CONCLUSION

Three months had passed, and in a quiet little cottage on the outskirts of a small country town, situated in one of the most beautiful and peaceful vales of the south-west country, Ella was slowly recovering from the shock of the dreadful experiences through which she had passed.

She had been ill for some weeks, but her mother, fussily incompetent at most times, was always at her best when sickness came, and she had nursed her daughter devotedly and successfully.

As soon as possible they had come to this quiet little place where people, busy with their own affairs and the important progress of the town, had scarcely heard of what the newspapers of the day called "The Great Chobham Sensation."

But, in fact, very much to Rupert's relief, comparatively little had been made known publicly, and the whole affair had attracted wonderfully little attention.

The one public proceeding had been the inquest of Deede Dawson, and that the coroner, at the request of the police eagerly searching for Walter Dunsmore, had made as brief and formal as possible. Under his direction the jury had returned a verdict of "justifiable homicide," and Ella's illness had had at least one good result of making it impossible for her to attend to give her evidence in person.

At a trial, of course, everything would have had to be told in full, but both Allen, Deede Dawson's accomplice, and Walter Dunsmore, his instigator and employer, had vanished utterly.

For Walter the search was very hot, but so far entirely without result. Now could Allen be found. He was identified with a fair degree of certainty as an old criminal well known to the authorities, and it was thought almost certain that he had had previous dealings with Deede Dawson, and knew enough about him to be able to force himself into Bittermeads.

Of the actual plot in operation there he most likely knew little or nothing, but probably Deede Dawson thought he might be useful, and the store of silver found in the attic that Ella had been employed in packing ready for removal was identified as part of the plunder from a recent burglary in a northern town.

It was thought, therefore, that both Allen and Deede Dawson might have been concerned in that affair, that Deede Dawson had managed to secure the greater share of the booty, and that Allen, on the night when Rupert found him breaking into Bittermeads, was endeavouring to get hold of the silver for himself.

But the actual facts are not likely now ever to be known, for from that day to this nothing has been heard of Allen. His old haunts know him no more, and to his record, carefully preserved at Scotland Yard, there have been no recent additions.

One theory is that Deede Dawson, finding him troublesome, took effectual steps to dispose of him. Another is that Deede Dawson got him away by either bribes or threats, and that, not knowing of Deede Dawson's death, he does not venture to return.

In any case, he was a commonplace criminal, and his fate is of little interest to any one but himself.

It was Walter for whom the police hunted with diligence and effort, but with a total lack of success, so that they began to think at the end of three months that he must somehow have succeeded in making his way out of the country.

During the first portion of this time Rupert had been very busy with a great many things that needed his attention. And then Lord Chobham, his health affected by the crimes and treachery of a kinsman whom he had known and trusted as he had known and trusted Walter, was attacked by acute bronchitis which affected his heart and carried him off within the week. The title and estates passed, therefore, to General Dunsmore, and Rupert became the Honourable Rupert Dunsmore and the direct heir. All this meant for him a great deal more to see to and arrange, for the health of the new Lord Chobham had also been affected and he left practically everything in his son's hands, so that, except for the letters which came regularly but had been often written in great haste, Ella knew and heard little of Rupert.

But today he was to come, for everything was finally in order, and, though this she did not know till later, Walter Dunsmore had at last been discovered, dead from poison self-administered, in a wretched lodging in an East End slum. Rupert had been called to identify the body and he had been able to arrange it so that very little was said at the inquest, where the customary verdict of "Suicide during temporary insanity" was duly returned by a quite uninterested jury.

That the last had been heard of the tragedy that had so nearly overwhelmed his life, Rupert was able now to feel fairly well assured, and it was therefore in a mood more cheerful than he had known of late that he started on his journey to Ella's new residence.

He had sent a wire to confirm his letter, and it was in a mood that was more than a little nervous that she busied herself with her preparations.

She chose her very simplest gown, and when there was absolutely nothing more to do she went into their little sitting-room to wait alone by the fire she had built up there, for it was winter now and today was cold and inclined to be stormy.

Rupert had not said exactly when she was to expect him, and she sat for a long time by the fire, starting at every sound and imagining at every moment that she heard the front-door bell ring.

"I shall not let him feel himself bound," she said to herself with great decision. "I shall tell him I hope we shall always be friends but that's all; and if he wants anything more, I shall say No. But most likely he won't say a word about all that nonsense, it would be silly to take seriously what he said—there."

To Ella, now, Bittermeads was always "there," and though she told herself several times that probably Rupert had not the least idea of repeating what he had said to her—there—and that most likely he was coming today merely to make a friendly call, and that it would never do for either of them to think again of what they had said when they were both so excited and overwrought, yet in her heart she knew a great deal better than all that.

But she said to herself very often:

"Anyhow, I shall certainly refuse him."

And on this point her mind was irrevocably made up since, after all, whether Rupert would accept refusal or not would still remain entirely for him to decide.

At half-past three she heard the garden-gate creak, and when she ran to the window to peep, she saw with a kind of chill surprise that there was a stranger coming through.

"Some one he's sent," she said to herself. "He doesn't want to come himself and so he has sent some one else instead. I am glad."

Having said this and repeated again the last three words, and having gulped down a sob—presumably of joy—that unexpectedly fluttered into her throat, she went quickly to open the door.

The newly-arrived stranger smiled at her as she showed herself but did not speak. He was a man of middle height, quite young, and wrapped in a big, loose overcoat that very completely hid his figure. His face, clean-shaven, showed clear, strongly-marked well-shaped features with a firm mouth round which at this moment played a very gentle and winning smile, a square-cut chin, and extremely bright, clear kindly eyes that were just now smiling too.

When he took off his hat she saw that his hair was cut rather closely, and very neatly brushed and combed, and she found his smile so compelling and so winning that in spite of her disappointment she found herself returning it.

It occurred to her that she had some time or another seen some one like this stranger, but when or where she could not imagine.

Still he did not speak, but his eyes were very tender and kind as they rested on her so that she wondered a little.

"Yes?" she said inquiringly. "Yes?"

"Don't you know me, Ella?" he said then, very softly, and in a voice that she recognized instantly.

"Is it you—you?" she breathed.

Instinctively she lifted her hands to greet him, and at once she found herself caught up and held, pressed passionately to his strongly-beating heart.

*****

An hour later, by the fire in the sitting-room, Ella suddenly remembered tea.

"Good gracious! You must be starving," she cried, smitten with remorse. "And there's poor mother waiting upstairs all this time. Oh, Rupert, are you very hungry?"

"Starving," he asserted, but held her to him as closely as ever.

"I must get the tea," she protested. She put one cheek against his and sighed contentedly.

"It's nice to see the real you," she murmured. "But oh, Rupert, I do miss your dear bristly beard."

THE END