ly if he could have passed the morning
in Paradise Row, and then have walked home with Roden in the dark
evening, he could, he thought, have said what he had to say very
conveniently.

But it was impossible. He sat silent for some minute or two after
Roden had asked the name of the bore of the hunting field, and then
answered him by proposing that they should start together on their
walk towards Hendon. "I am all ready; but you must tell me the name
of this dreadful man."

"As soon as we have started I will. I have come here on purpose to
tell you."

"To tell me the name of the man you ran away from in Cumberland?"

"Exactly that;--come along." And so they started, more than an hour
before the time at which Marion Fay would return from church. "The
man who annoyed me so out hunting was an intimate friend of yours."

"I have not an intimate friend in the world except yourself."

"Not Marion Fay?"

"I meant among men. I do not suppose that Marion Fay was out hunting
in Cumberland."

"I should not have ran away from her, I think, if she had. It was Mr.
Crocker, of the General Post Office."

"Crocker in Cumberland?"

"Certainly he was in Cumberland,--unless some one personated him.
I met him dining at Castle Hautboy, when he was kind enough to make
himself known to me, and again out hunting,--when he did more than
make himself known to me."

"I am surprised."

"Is he not away on leave?"

"Oh, yes;--he is away on leave. I do not doubt that it was he."

"Why should he not be in Cumberland,--when, as it happens, his father
is land-steward or something of that sort to my uncle Persiflage?"

"Because I did not know that he had any connection with Cumberland.
Why not Cumberland, or Westmoreland, or Northumberland, you may say?
Why not?--or Yorkshire, or Lincolnshire, or Norfolk? I certainly did
not suppose that a Post Office clerk out on his holidays would be
found hunting in any county."

"You have never heard of his flea-bitten horse?"

"Not a word. I didn't know that he had ever sat upon a horse. And now
will you let me know why you have called him my friend?"

"Is he not so?"

"By no means."

"Does he not sit at the same desk with you?"

"Certainly he does."

"I think I should be friends with a man if I sat at the same desk
with him."

"With Crocker even?" asked Roden.

"Well; he might be an exception."

"But if an exception to you, why not also an exception to me? As it
happens, Crocker ha