siness.

"Thank you," he said. "It seems you have been to Edinburgh. We had a
branch there, but closed it recently. Newcastle has more facilities
for importing our goods. I'm afraid you have been put to some trouble."

Foster replied that he did not mind this, since he had promised Miss
Austin to bring the packet and she was a friend of his, but although he
studied the man's face saw nothing to indicate that he was interested.

"Are you staying here?" he asked, and when Foster told him that he was
going back as soon as he could, resumed: "If you had been staying, I
would have been glad to take you about the town; but, after all,
there's nothing much in the way of amusement going on. I might arrange
to meet you in the afternoon, but must now finish some letters for the
Continental mail."

Foster said he could not wait and went out, feeling that the other was
pleased to get rid of him. Graham was obviously a small importer of
provisions, and he could not see why the girl in Edinburgh had warned
him to post the packet. Carmen's reason for sending such a man
something she valued was impossible to discern.

This, however, was not Foster's business, and after lunch he caught a
train to Hexham and, finding he could get no farther, spent the night
in the old Border town.

VIII

AN OFFER OF HELP

It rained and the light was going when Foster sat in a window seat of
the library at the Garth. He was alone, but did not mind this. The
Featherstones treated him as one of the family; he was free to do what
he liked, and Alice had just gone away, after talking to him for half
an hour. Lighting a cigarette, he mused and looked about.

Outside, the firs rose, black and dripping, above the wet drive.
Between their trunks he saw the river, stained with peat, brawling
among the stones, and the streaks of foam that stretched across a
coffee-colored pool. Then a few boggy fields ran back into the mist
that hung about the hills. A red fire threw a soft glow about the
library. The room was somewhat shabby but spacious. Rows of old books
in stained bindings, which Foster thought nobody read, faded into the
gloom at its other end. It was warm and quiet, and he found it a
comfortable retreat.

He had now been a fortnight at the Garth and did not want to leave.
Featherstone and his wife obviously wished him to stay; he was grateful
for the welcome they had given him, and felt as if he belonged to the
place. What A