voice, cultivated
and gentle, that was in odd contrast with his rough and battered
appearance. "The time, was that what you wanted to know?"

"Yes, sir; please, sir," answered the child, who had shrunk back in
alarm at the violent start Dunn had given, but now seemed reassured by
his gentle and pleasant voice. "The right time," the little one added
almost instantly and with much emphasis on the "right."

Dunn gravely gave the required information with the assurance that to
the best of his belief it was "right," and the child thanked him and
scampered off.

Resuming his way, Dunn shook his head with an air of grave
dissatisfaction.

"Nerves all to pieces," he muttered. "That won't do. Hang it all, the
job's no worse than following a wounded tiger into the jungle, and I've
done that before now. Only then, of course, one knew what to expect,
whereas now--And I was a silly ass to lose my temper with that boy at
the station. You aren't making a very brilliant start, Bobby, my boy."

By this time he had left the little town behind him and he was walking
along a very lonely and dark road.

On one side was a plantation of young trees, on the other there was the
open ground, covered with furze bush, of the village common.

Where the plantation ended stood a low, two-storied house of medium
size, with a veranda stretching its full length in front. It stood back
from the road some distance and appeared to be surrounded by a large
garden.

At the gate Dunn halted and struck a match as if to light a pipe, and
by the flickering flame of this match the name "Bittermeads," painted on
the gate became visible.

"Here it is, then," he muttered. "I wonder--"

Without completing the sentence he slipped through the gate, which was
not quite closed, and entered the garden, where he crouched down in the
shadow of some bushes that grew by the side of the gravel path leading
to the house, and seemed to compose himself for a long vigil.

An hour passed, and another. Nothing had happened--he had seen nothing,
heard nothing, save for the passing of an occasional vehicle or
pedestrian on the road, and he himself had never stirred or moved, so
that he seemed one with the night and one with the shadows where
he crouched, and a pair of field-mice that had come from the common
opposite went to and fro about their busy occupations at his feet
without paying him the least attention.

Another hour passed, and at last there began to be signs