ft of prophecy though."

Fyne got up suddenly with a muttered "No, evidently not." He was
gloomy, hesitating. I supposed that he would not wish to play chess
that afternoon. This would dispense me from leaving my rooms on a day
much too fine to be wasted in walking exercise. And I was disappointed
when picking up his cap he intimated to me his hope of seeing me at the
cottage about four o'clock--as usual.

"It wouldn't be as usual." I put a particular stress on that remark.
He admitted, after a short reflection, that it would not be. No. Not
as usual. In fact it was his wife who hoped, rather, for my presence.
She had formed a very favourable opinion of my practical sagacity.

This was the first I ever heard of it. I had never suspected that Mrs
Fyne had taken the trouble to distinguish in me the signs of sagacity or
folly. The few words we had exchanged last night in the excitement--or
the bother--of the girl's disappearance, were the first moderately
significant words which had ever passed between us. I had felt myself
always to be in Mrs Fyne's view her husband's chess-player and nothing
else--a convenience--almost an implement.

"I am highly flattered," I said. "I have always heard that there are no
limits to feminine intuition; and now I am half inclined to believe it
is so. But still I fail to see in what way my sagacity, practical or
otherwise, can be of any service to Mrs Fyne. One man's sagacity is
very much like any other man's sagacity. And with you at hand--"

Fyne, manifestly not attending to what I was saying, directed straight
at me his worried solemn eyes and struck in:

"Yes, yes. Very likely. But you will come--won't you?"

I had made up my mind that no Fyne of either sex would make me walk
three miles (there and back to their cottage) on this fine day. If the
Fynes had been an average sociable couple one knows only because leisure
must be got through somehow, I would have made short work of that
special invitation. But they were not that. Their undeniable humanity
had to be acknowledged. At the same time I wanted to have my own way.
So I proposed that I should be allowed the pleasure of offering them a
cup of tea at my rooms.

A short reflective pause--and Fyne accepted eagerly in his own and his
wife's name. A moment after I heard the click of the gate-latch and
then in an ecstasy of barking from his demonstrative dog his serious
head went past my window on the other sid