ed about him like a disordered garment. Had he--I
asked myself with interest--resisted his wife to the very last minute
and, then bolted up the road from the last conclusive argument, as
though it had been a loaded gun suddenly produced? I opened the
carriage door, and a vigorous porter shoved him in from behind just as
the end of the rustic platform went gliding swiftly from under his feet.
He was very much out of breath, and I waited with some curiosity for
the moment he would recover his power of speech. That moment came. He
said "Good morning" with a slight gasp, remained very still for another
minute and then pulled out of his pocket the travelling chessboard, and
holding it in his hand, directed at me a glance of inquiry. "Yes.
Certainly," I said, very much disappointed.

PART ONE, CHAPTER 7.

ON THE PAVEMENT.

Fyne was not willing to talk; but as I had been already let into the
secret, the fair-minded little man recognised that I had some right to
information if I insisted on it. And I did insist, after the third
game. We were yet some way from the end of our journey.

"Oh, if you want to know," was his somewhat impatient opening. And then
he talked rather volubly. First of all his wife had not given him to
read the letter received from Flora (I had suspected him of having it in
his pocket), but had told him all about the contents. It was not at all
what it should have been even if the girl had wished to affirm her right
to disregard the feelings of all the world. Her own had been trampled
in the dirt out of all shape. Extraordinary thing to say--I would
admit, for a young girl of her age. The whole tone of that letter was
wrong, quite wrong. It was certainly not the product of a--say, of a
well-balanced mind.

"If she were given some sort of footing in this world," I said, "if only
no bigger than the palm of my hand, she would probably learn to keep a
better balance."

Fyne ignored this little remark. His wife, he said, was not the sort of
person to be addressed mockingly on a serious subject. There was an
unpleasant strain of levity in that letter, extending even to the
references to Captain Anthony himself. Such a disposition was enough,
his wife had pointed out to him, to alarm one for the future, had all
the circumstances of that preposterous project been as satisfactory as
in fact they were not. Other parts of the letter seemed to have a
challenging tone--as if daring them (the