e. I will send down a man for your things. Phil would
not like you to stay at the inn--neither should I." Miss Heredith rose
as she spoke. "Please do whatever you wish, Mr. Colwyn. I quite
understand that you have work to do, and wish to be alone."

"Thank you. Then I shall stay."

Colwyn sat for a while after she had left him, forming his plans. He was
grateful to her for a tact which had not transgressed beyond the limits
of unspoken thought during their brief interview, but he was more
pleased with the fortuitous absence of Phil and Musard at that period of
his investigations. He welcomed the opportunity of working unquestioned,
because he was not prepared to disclose the statements of Nepcote and
Hazel Rath to any of the inmates of the moat-house until he had tested
the feasibility of both stories in the setting of the crime.

"It has all turned out very fortunately, so far," was the thought which
arose in his mind. "And now--to work."

He glanced at his watch. It was nearly four o'clock. His immediate plans
were a walk to Weydene, and another observation of the bedroom which
Mrs. Heredith had occupied in the left wing. He decided to leave his
investigation of the room until later so as to have the advantage of the
waning daylight in his walk across the fields.

When he returned to the moat-house it was dark, and on the stroke of the
dinner hour. That meal he took with Sir Philip and Miss Heredith in the
faded state of the big dining-room--three decorous figures at a brightly
lit oasis of snowy linen and silver, with the sober black of Tufnell in
the background. Sir Philip greeted Colwyn with his tired smile of
welcome. He seemed somewhat frailer, but quite animated as he pressed a
special claret on his guest and told him, like a child telling of a
promised treat, that he was dining out the following night. He insisted
on giving the wonderful news in detail. He had yielded to the
solicitations of an old friend--Lord Granger, the ambassador, who had
just returned to Granger Park after five years' absence from England,
and would take no denial. But it was Alethea's doing--she had arranged
it all.

"I'm going to put back the clock of Time," he said, with a feeble
chuckle. "Put the hands right back."

"I think it will do him good, don't you, Mr. Colwyn?" said Miss Heredith
with a wistful smile.

"I have no doubt of it," said Colwyn with an answering smile. "A meeting
with an old friend is always a good thing. A