ite about in his novels. One of the chaps who'd go through
fire and water to get their ends; yes, and blood too, if it's
necessary. There's been some queer stories told about him; they say he
sticks at nothing. Look at that last Turkish concession."

The speaker and his companion sauntered down the road. Stafford and
Howard had heard every word; but Stafford looked straight before him,
and made no sign, and Howard yawned as if he had not heard a syllable.

"Do you raise any objection to my going to my little bed, Stafford?" he
asked. "I suppose, having done nothing more than clamber about a river,
get wet through, and tramp a dozen miles over hills, you do not feel
tired."

"No," said Stafford, "I don't feel like turning in just yet.
Good-night, old man."

When Howard had gone Stafford exchanged his dress-coat for a
shooting-jacket, and with the little wallet in his pocket and his pipe
in his mouth, he strode up the road. As he said, he did not feel
tired--it was difficult for Stafford, with his athletic frame and
perfect muscular system, to get tired under any circumstances--the
night was one of the loveliest he had ever seen, and it seemed wicked
to waste it by going to bed, so he walked on, all unconsciously going
in the direction of Heron Hall. The remarks about his father which had
fallen from the bagman, stuck to him for a time like a burr: it isn't
pleasant to hear your father described as a kind of charlatan and
trickster, and Stafford would have liked to have collared the man and
knocked an apology out of him; but there are certain disadvantages
attached to the position of gentlemen, and one of them is that you have
to pretend to be deaf to speeches that were not intended for your ears;
so Stafford could not bash the bagman for having spoken disrespectfully
of the great Sir Stephen Orme.

But presently, almost suddenly, Stafford came in sight of the
magnificent iron gates, and he forgot his father and the talkative
commercial traveller, and his interest in the girl of the dale flashed
back upon him with full force. He saw that the gates were chained and
locked, and, with a natural curiosity, he followed the road beside the
wall. It stopped almost abruptly and gave place to a low railing which
divided the lawn in front of the house from the park beyond; and the
long irregular facade of the old building was suddenly revealed.

CHAPTER III.

Stafford looked at it with admiration mingled with pity. In t