watched with the same care and secrecy, and sometimes he
seemed to see her walking amidst the flowers as an angel of sweetness
and laughing innocence; and sometimes he saw her, as it were, with
the shadow of death around her beauty, and behind her gentle eyes and
winning ways a great and horrible abyss.

Of one thing he was certain--her mind was troubled and she was not at
ease; and it was plain, also, that she feared her smiling soft-spoken
stepfather.

As the days passed, too, Dunn grew convinced that she was watching him
all the time, even when she seemed most indifferent, as closely and as
intently as he watched her.

"All watching together," Dunn thought grimly. "It would be simple
enough, I suppose, if one could hit on the key move, but that I suppose
no one knows but Deede Dawson himself. One thing, he can't very well
be up to any fresh mischief while he's lounging about here like this. I
suppose he is simply waiting his time."

As for the chess problem, that baffled him entirely. He said as much
to Deede Dawson, who was very pleased, but would not tell him what the
solution was.

"No, no, find it out for yourself," he said, chuckling with a merriment
in which, for once his cold eyes seemed to take full share.

"I'll go on trying," said Dunn, and it grew to be quite a custom between
them for Deede Dawson to ask him how he was getting on with the problem;
and for Dunn to reply that he was still searching for the key move.

Several times little errands took Dunn into the village, where,
discreetly listening to the current gossip, he learned that Mr. John
Clive of Ramsdon Place had been injured in an attack made upon him by a
gang of ferocious poachers--at least a dozen in number--but was making
good progress towards recovery.

Also, he found that Mr. John Clive's visits to Bittermeads had not gone
unremarked, or wholly uncriticized, since there was a vague feeling that
a Mr. Clive of Ramsdon Place ought to make a better match.

"But a pretty face is all a young man thinks of," said the more
experienced; and on the whole, it seemed to be felt that the open
attention Clive paid to Ella was at least easily to be understood.

Almost the first visit Clive paid, when he was allowed to venture out,
was to Bittermeads; and Dunn, returning one afternoon from an errand,
found him established on the lawn in the company of Ella, and looking
little the worse for his adventure.

He and Ella seemed to be talking very