to force the
pace at this particular moment. He saw her to the door, where her
beautiful limousine was awaiting her.

"I hope to meet you again very soon, Lady Constance."

"Without a warrant?" she smiled.

"I do not think it will be with a warrant," he said, quietly, "unless
it is for your friend Fallock."

He stood in the hall and watched the car disappear swiftly round the
corner of the square. Scarcely was it out of sight than from the little
thoroughfare which leads from the mews at the back of the houses shot a
motor-cyclist who followed in the same direction as the car had taken.

T. B. nodded approvingly; he was leaving nothing to chance. Lady
Constance Dex would not be left day or night free from observation.

"And she did not mention Farrington!" he said to himself, as he mounted
the stairs. "One would almost think he was alive."

It was nine o'clock that evening when the little two-seated motor-car
which Lady Constance drove so deftly came spinning along the broad road
which runs into Great Bradley, skirted the town by a side road and
gained the great rambling rectory which stood apart from the little town
in its own beautiful grounds. She sprang lightly out of the car.

The noise of the wheels upon the gravel walk had brought a servant to
the door, and she brushed past the serving man without a word; ran
upstairs to her own room and closed and locked the door behind her
before she switched on the electric light. The electric light was an
unusual possession in so small a town, but she owed its presence in the
house to her friendship with that extraordinary man who was the occupant
of the Secret House.

Three miles away, out of sight of the rectory in a fold of the hill was
this great gaunt building, erected, so popular gossip said, by one who
had been crossed in love and desired to live the life of a recluse, a
desire which was respected by the superstitious town-folk of Great
Bradley. The Secret House had been built in the hollow which was known
locally as "Murderers' Valley," a pretty little glen which many years
before had been the scene of an outrageous crime. The house added to,
rather than detracted from, the reputation of the glen; no man saw the
occupant of the Secret House; his secretary and his two Italian servants
came frequently to Great Bradley to make their purchases; now and again
his closed car would whizz through the streets; and Great Bradley,
speculating as to the identity of its