derstand?"

"Well, rather--considering it's a stage I've gone through myself,"
answered the other, kindly. "You'll get over it though. And, look
here, Percy, I shall be leaving Bayfield's myself in a day or two. How
would you like to join me? We might go up-country together, and I could
show you some real wild life. You see, I know my way about in those
parts, and it would be a first-rate opportunity for you to see something
of them. What do you say?"

"That's a real splendid idea, Hilary."

"Very well. Now go back and get this business over. Get it clean
behind you mind, thoroughly and entirely. I'll send you word in a
couple of days at the outside where to join me, then roll up your traps
and come straight along. How is that?"

"The very thing."

"Right. Now, Percy. Seriously, mind. There must be no more dallying.
You know what I mean?"

"Not likely, knowing what I know now."

"Then you'd better go and get it over at once. I'll say good-bye to the
Bayfields for you. You turn round right here. Good-bye now--and one of
these days you'll bless your stars for this lucky escape."

"Then you'll let me hear soon, Hilary?"

"In a couple of days at the outside. Good-bye."

A staunch handgrip, and the older man sat there, looking after the
receding form of the younger.

"It strikes me," he said to himself as he turned his horse's head along
the track again. "It strikes me that I've been only just in time to get
that young fool out of a most deadly mess. Heavens! what a ghastly
complication it would have been. Moreover, I believe he was sent out
here to find out about me, and what I was doing. Well, instead of him
reclaiming me, it has befallen that I have been the one marked out to
reclaim him."

Then as he sent his horse along at a brisk canter to make up the time
lost during their talk, his mind reverted to himself and his own
affairs. What a series of surprises had been contained within the last
twenty-four hours. Could it have been only yesterday that he came along
this road, serene, content, with no forewarning of what lay in store?
Why, it seemed that half a lifetime's drama had been played out within
that brief space--and now, as he pressed on to overtake Bayfield's
conveyance, the tilt of which was visible some distance ahead moving
through the bushes, it seemed that with every stride of his horse he was
advancing into a purer atmosphere. He felt as one, who, having struck
upon st