re directly, so I'm going back to our
compartment to pick up your belongings. I can climb in, I fancy. What
did you leave behind?"

Diana laughed.

"What a practical man you are! Fancy thinking of such things as a
forgotten coat and a dressing-bag when we've just escaped with our lives!"

"Well, you may as well have them," he returned gruffly. "Wait here."
And he disappeared into the darkness, returning presently with the
various odds and ends which she had left in the carriage.

Soon afterwards the emergency train came up, and those who could took
their places, whilst the injured were lifted by kindly, careful hands
into the ambulance compartment. The train drew slowly away from the
scene of the accident, gradually gathering speed, and Diana, worn out
with strain and excitement, dozed fitfully to the rhythmic rumbling of
the wheels.

She woke with a start to find that the train was slowing down and her
companion gathering his belongings together preparatory to departure.
She sprang up and slipping off the overcoat she was still wearing, handed
it back to him. He seemed reluctant to take it from her.

"Shall you be warm enough?" he asked doubtfully.

"Oh, yes. It's only half-an-hour's run from here to Craiford Junction,
and there they'll meet me with plenty of wraps." She hesitated a moment,
then went on shyly: "I can't thank you properly for all you've done."

"Don't," he said curtly. "It was little enough. But I'm glad I was
there."

The train came to a standstill, and she held out her hand.

"Good-bye," she said, very low.

He wrung her hand, and, releasing it abruptly, lifted his hat and
disappeared amid the throng of people on the platform. And it was not
until the train had steamed out of the station again that she remembered
that she did not even know his name.

Very slowly she unknotted the handkerchief from about her arm, and laying
the blood-stained square of linen on her knee, proceeded to examine each
corner carefully. In one of them she found the initials M.E., very
finely worked.

CHAPTER IV

CRAILING RECTORY

The early morning mist still lingered in the valleys and clung about
the river banks as the Reverend Alan Stair, returning from his
matutinal dip in the sea, swung up the lane and pushed open the door
giving access from it to the Rectory grounds. The little wooden door,
painted green and overhung with ivy, was never bolted. In the
primitive Devon village of Cra