her comfort and happiness, was a
model duenna; never questioning, never criticising, humoring all that
young lady's whims, yet retaining that free, hearty out-spokenness, that
made her seem not in the least a dependent, and which was, as Mrs.
Aliston well knew, most pleasing to the heiress.

Altogether, they were a pair of very sensible women. Mrs. Aliston ate
when she liked, and slept when she liked; Miss Wardour did what _she_
liked, and both were satisfied.

While Miss Wardour was promenading her garden, and Mrs. Aliston was
comfortably sleeping, two men were approaching each other on the sandy
road that ran from the town past Wardour Place.

The one coming from townward was our detective tramp, looking all that a
tramp should be.

The other, approaching from the opposite direction, was a sleek,
respectable looking, middle aged man, who might have been some small
farmer dressed in his Sunday clothes, which fitted him none too well.

Almost opposite the gates of Wardour Place they met and passed each
other, the tramp saluting respectfully, the other responding with a
stolid stare.

A little further on the tramp turned slowly and looked back. The
farmer-looking individual had entered the grounds of Wardour Place, and
was hurrying straight on toward the entrance, looking neither to the
right nor left.

[Illustration: "The tramp turned and looked back."]

"So!" muttered the tramp, with the air of a man who would have been
astonished then, but for the fact that he never allowed anything to
astonish him. "So _he_ is mixing himself up in this affair! I wonder in
what capacity? Can it be that by some means he has been selected to work
up this case? Oh! oh! Bless my soul! What a coincidence that would be!"

Evidently he had grasped at a new idea, and one that was somewhat
startling. He quickened his pace until, unconsciously, it became almost
a trot. The mask of studied vacancy dropped from his face, leaving it
alert, keen, analytical. His mind had grasped at a problem, and he was
studying it with knitted brow and compressed mouth, as he hurried on
countryward, not heeding anything save the thought which possessed him.

It was Sunday morning, too early for church goers, and too late for cow
boys. So he met no one on his hurried march, and when at last he began
to moderate his pace, he was a full mile from Wardour Place. As his walk
grew slower his face relaxed, and gradually resumed its mask of careless
stupidity