ovially. "If this isn't the most
extraordinary coincidence! When I got Robert Drummond's note, and
noticed the part of the country you lived in, I wondered if you could
possibly be the same minister I'd met; but it really seemed too good to
be true! Delighted to meet you again!"

He laughed loud and cheerfully, and wrung the minister's hand like an
old friend. Mr Burnett, though less demonstrative, felt heartily
pleased, and led his guest cordially into the manse parlour.

"You'll have some tea before you start, I hope?" he inquired.

"Ra-ther!" cried Mr Taylor. "I've a Lancashire appetite for tea! Ha,
ha, ha!"

"Well, I'll have it in at once," said the minister, ringing the bell,
"for I suppose we ought not to postpone our start too long."

"No hurry at all, my dear fellow," said Mr Taylor, throwing himself
into the easiest chair the minister possessed. "I mean to have a jolly
good tuck in before I start!"

At that moment Mr Burnett remembered that this time he had seen a
chauffeur in the car. He went hospitably out of the room and turned
towards the front door. But hardly had he turned in that direction
when he heard Mr Taylor call out--

"Hallo! Where are you going?"

And the next moment he was after the minister and had him by the arm
just as they reached the open front door. Mr Burnett ever afterwards
remembered the curious impression produced on him by the note in Mr
Taylor's voice, and that hurried grip of the arm. Suspicion, alarm, a
note of anger, all seemed to be blended.

"I--I was only going to ask your driver to come and have a cup of tea
in the kitchen," stammered the embarrassed minister.

"My dear sir, he doesn't want any; I've asked him already!" said Mr
Taylor. "I assure you honestly I have!"

Mr Burnett suffered himself to be led back wondering greatly. He had
caught a glimpse of the chauffeur, a clean-shaven, well-turned-out man,
sitting back in his seat with his cap far over his eyes, and even in
that hurried glance at part of his face he had been struck with
something curiously familiar about the man; though whether he had seen
him before, or, if not, who he reminded him of, he was quite unable to
say. And then there was Mr Taylor's extraordinary change of manner the
very moment he started to see the chauffeur. He could make nothing of
it at all, but for some little time afterwards he had a vague sense of
disquiet.

Mr Taylor, on his part, had recovered his cheerfulne