could be raked and scraped together."

"Good lud, yes! of course he would. I never thought of that. Did
you, Mary? His whole heart and soul were bound up in the animal. If
he had thought that anything had happened to her, if he had known
that she was gone, a pitful of raging devils would have been spirits
of meekness beside him. Man alive, you make my head whiz. For him
to go off over the moor without word or cry at such a time----I say,
Mr. Cleek! For God's sake, what do you make of such a thing as that
at such a time, eh?"

"Well, Major," replied Cleek, "I hate to destroy any man's illusions
and to besmirch any man's reputation, but--_que voulez vous_? If Mr.
Tom Farrow went out upon that moor after the mare was stolen, and
went without giving an alarm or saying a word to anybody, then in my
private opinion your precious trainer is nothing in the world but a
precious double-faced, double-dealing, dishonourable blackguard, who
treacherously sold you to the enemy and got just what he deserved
by way of payment."

Major Norcross made no reply. He simply screwed up his lips until
they were a mere pucker of little creases, and looked round at his
wife with something of the pain and hopeless bewilderment of an
unjustly scolded child.

"You know, Seton, it was what Captain MacTavish suggested," ventured
she, gently and regretfully. "And when two men of intellect----" Then
she sighed and let the rest go by default.

"Demmit, Mary, you don't mean to suggest that I haven't any, do you?"

"No, dear; but----"

"Buts be blowed! Don't you think I know a man when I run foul of
him? And if ever there was a square-dealing, honest chap on this
earth----Look here, Mr. Cleek. Gad! you may be a bright chap and all
that, but you'll have to give me something a blessed sight stronger
than mere suspicion before you can make me believe a thing like that
about Tom Farrow."

"I am not endeavouring to make you believe it, Major. I am merely
showing you what would certainly be the absolute truth of the matter
_if_ Tom Farrow had done what you suggested, and gone out on that
moor alone and without a word or a cry when he discovered that
the animal was stolen. But, my dear sir, I incline to the belief that
he never did go out there after any person or any living thing
whatsoever."

"Then, dash it, sir, how in thunder are you going to explain his
being there at all?"

"By the simple process, Major, of suggesting that he was on his way