e pretty widow's
recent purchase of a new motor-car.

Trent turned to Sara with a smile.

"Then it devolves on me to see you safely home, Miss Tennant, may I?"

She nodded permission, and they set off through the high-hedged lane,
Sara hurrying along at top speed.

For a few minutes Trent strode beside her in silence. Then:

"Are you catching a train?" he inquired mildly. "Or is it only that you
want to be rid of my company in the shortest possible time?"

She coloured, moderating her pace with an effort. Once again the odd
nervousness engendered by his presence had descended on her. It was
as though something in the man's dominating personality strung all
her nerves to a high tension of consciousness, and she felt herself
overwhelmingly sensible of his proximity.

He smiled down at her.

"Then--if you're not in any hurry to get home--will you let me take you
round by Crabtree Moor? It's part of a small farm of mine, and I want a
word with my tenant."

Sara acquiesced, and, Trent, having speedily transacted the little
matter of business with his tenant, they made their way across a stretch
of wild moorland which intersected the cultivated fields lying on either
hand.

In the dusk of the evening, with the wan light of the early moon
deepening the shadows and transforming the clumps of furze into strange,
unrecognizable shapes of darkness, it was an eerie enough place. Sara
shivered a little, instinctively moving closer to her companion. And
then, as they rounded a furze-crowned hummock, out of the hazy twilight,
loping along on swift, padding feet, emerged the figure of a man.

With a muttered curse he swerved aside, but Trent's arm shot out, and,
catching him by the shoulder, he swung him round so that he faced them.

"Leggo!" he muttered, twisting in Trent's iron grasp. "Leggo, can't
you?"

"I can, but I'm not going to," said Trent coolly. "At least, not till
you've explained your presence here. This is private property. What are
you doing on it?"

"I'm doing no harm," growled the man sullenly.

"No?" Trent passed his free hand swiftly down the fellow's body,
feeling the bulge of his coat. "Then what's the meaning of those rabbits
sticking out under your coat? Now, look here, my man, I know you. You're
Jim Brady, and it's not the first, nor the second, time I've caught you
poaching on my land. But it's the last. Understand that? This time the
Bench shall deal with you."

The man was silent for a mo