was not a complete stranger to her. Why had their meeting
been a clandestine one? This, and a thousand similar queries ran through
his mind as they walked across the field in the direction of a long,
low, thatched farmhouse which stood in the distance.

"I'm a complete stranger in these parts," Hamilton informed her. "I live
nowadays mostly abroad, away above the Danube, and am only home for a
holiday."

"And I'm afraid you've completely spoilt your clothes," she laughed,
looking at his wet, muddy trousers and boots.

"Well, if I have, yours also are no further good."

"Oh, my blouse will wash, and I shall send my skirt to the cleaners, and
it will come back like new," she answered. "Women's outdoor clothing
never suffers by a wetting. We'll get Mrs. Wyatt to dry them, and then
I'll get home again to my aunt in Woodnewton. Do you know the place?"

"I fancy I passed through it this morning. One of those long, lean
villages, with a church at the end."

"That's it--the dullest little place in all England, I believe."

He was struck by her charm of manner. Though bedraggled and dishevelled,
she was nevertheless delightful, and treated her sudden immersion with
careless unconcern.

Why had Krail attempted to get rid of her in that manner? What motive
had he?

They reached the farmhouse, where Mrs. Wyatt, a stout, ruddy-faced
woman, detecting their approach, met them upon the threshold. "Lawks,
Miss Heyburn! why, what's happened?" she asked in alarm.

"I fell into the river, and this gentleman fished me out. That's all,"
laughed the girl. "We want to dry our things, if we may."

In a few minutes, in bedrooms upstairs, they had exchanged their wet
clothes for dry ones. Then Edgar in the farmer's Sunday suit of black,
and Gabrielle in one of Mrs. Wyatt's stuff dresses, in the big folds of
which her slim little figure was lost, met again in the spacious
farmhouse-kitchen below.

They laughed heartily at the ridiculous figure which each presented, and
drank the glasses of hot milk which the farmer's wife pressed upon them.

Old Miss Heyburn had been Mrs. Wyatt's mistress years ago, when she was
in service, therefore she was most solicitous after the girl's welfare,
and truth to tell looked askance at the good-looking stranger who had
accompanied her.

Gabrielle, too, was puzzled to know why Mr. Hamilton should be there.
That he now lived abroad "beside the Danube" was all the information he
had vouchsafed regard