she had ostensibly come to pay, turned her horse's head
towards the lodge.

"Well, I'm blowed!" said Moggridge.

"They do blow one," his patient assented.

Naturally enough the story of this equestrian adventure soon ran through
Clankwood. The exact particulars, however, were a little hard to collect,
for while Moggridge supplied many minute and picturesque details,
illustrating his own activity and presence of mind and the imminent peril
of the Lady Alicia, Mr Beveridge recounted an equally vivid story of a
runaway horse recovered by himself to its fair owner's unbounded
gratitude. Official opinion naturally accepted the official account, and
for the next few days Mr Beveridge became an object of considerable
anxiety and mistrust.

"I can't make the man out," said Sherlaw to Escott. "I had begun to think
there was nothing much the matter with him."

"No more there is," replied Escott. "His memory seems to me to have
suffered from something, and he simply supplies its place in conversation
from his imagination, and in action from the inspiration of the moment.
The methods of society are too orthodox for such an aberration, and as his
friends doubtless pay a handsome fee to keep him here, old Congers labels
him mad and locks the door on him."

A day or two afterwards official opinion was a little disturbed. Lady
Alicia, in reply to anxious inquiries, gave a third version of the
adventure, from which nothing in particular could be gathered except that
nothing in particular had happened.

"What do you make of this, Escott?" asked Dr Congleton, laying her note
before his assistant.

"Merely that a woman wrote it."

"Hum! I suppose that _is_ the explanation."

Upon which the doctor looked profound and went to lunch.

CHAPTER VI.

"Two five-pound notes, half-a-sovereign, and seven and sixpence in
silver," said Mr Beveridge to himself. "Ah, and a card."

On the card was written, "From a friend, if you will accept it. A."

He was standing under the wall, in the secluded walk, holding a little
lady's purse in his hand, and listening to two different footsteps. One
little pair of feet were hurrying away on the farther side of the high
wall, another and larger were approaching him at a run.

"Wot's he bin up to now, I wonder," Moggridge panted to himself--for the
second pair of feet belonged to him. "Shamming nose-bleed and sending me
in for an 'andkerchief, and then sneakin