upposing there were no hitch, his suit-case could
hardly arrive for another hour and a half. Wynford Place was a bare mile
away, perhaps twenty minutes' walk; the night was fine and moonlight, he
was getting horribly bored in that room; he would stroll out and have a
look at the outside of the old place. After all, it was only the exterior
that he could expect to find unaltered; doubtless the Morristons with
their wealth had transformed the interior almost out of his knowledge.
Anyhow he would see that later. Just then he simply longed for a sight of
the ancient house with its detached tower and the familiar landmarks.

Accordingly he filled a pipe, put on a thick overcoat and a golf cap and
went out, leaving word of his return within the hour.

But it was a good two hours before he reappeared, and the landlord, who
met him with the news that the missing suit-case had been awaiting him in
his room since twenty minutes past ten, was struck by a certain
peculiarity in his manner. It was nothing very much beyond a suggestion
of suppressed excitement and that rather wild look which lingers in a
man's eyes when he is just fresh from a dispute or has experienced a
narrow escape from danger. Then Gifford ordered a stiff glass of spirits
and soda and drank it off before going up to change.

"Shall you be going to Wynford Place, sir?" the landlord inquired as he
glanced at the clock.

Gifford hesitated a moment. "Yes. Let me have a fly in a quarter of an
hour," he answered.

But it was more than double that time when he came down dressed for
the dance.

The old house looked picturesque enough in the moonlight as he approached
it. All the windows in the main building were lighted up, and there was a
pleasant suggestion of revelry about the ivy-clad pile. Standing some
dozen yards from the house, but connected with it by a covered way, was a
three-storied tower, the remains of a much older house, and from the
lower windows of this lights also shone.

Gifford entered the well-remembered hall and made his way, almost in a
dream, to the ball-room, where many hunting men in pink made the scene
unusually gay. Unable for the moment to catch sight of Kelson, he had to
introduce himself to his host, who had heard of his mishap and gave him a
cheerily sympathetic welcome. Richard Morriston was a pleasant-looking
man of about five or six-and-thirty, the last man, Gifford thought, he
would bear a grudge against for possessing the old