e know that I was passing?' Mr. Fishwick cried, thrusting
back his wig and rubbing his head in perplexity. He could not yet
believe that it was chance and only chance had brought them together.

And she was equally ignorant. 'I don't know,' she said. 'He only told
me--that he would have a carriage waiting at the gate.'

'And why did he not come with you?'

'He said--I think he said he was under obligations to Mr. Pomeroy.'

'Pomeroy? Pomeroy?' the lawyer repeated slowly. 'But sure, my dear, if
he was a villain, still, having the clergyman with you you should have
been safe. This Mr. Pomeroy was not in the same case as Mr. Dunborough.
He could not have been deep in love after knowing you a dozen hours.'

'I think,' she said, but mechanically, as if her mind ran on something
else, 'that he knew who I was, and wished to make me marry him.'

'Who you were!' Mr. Fishwick repeated; and--and he groaned.

The sudden check was strange, and Julia should have remarked it. But she
did not; and after a short silence, 'How could he know?' Mr. Fishwick
asked faintly.

'I don't know,' she answered, in the same absent manner. Then with an
effort which was apparent in her tone, 'Lord Almeric Doyley was there,'
she said. 'He was there too.'

'Ah!' the lawyer replied, accepting the fact with remarkable apathy.
Perhaps his thoughts also were far away. 'He was there, was he?'

'Yes,' she said. 'He was there, and he--' then, in a changed tone, 'Did
you say that Sir George was behind us?'

'He should be,' he answered; and, occupied as she was with her own
trouble, she was struck with the gloom of the attorney's tone. 'We
settled,' he continued, 'as soon as we learned where the men had left
you, that I should start for Calne and make inquiries there, and they
should start an hour later for Chippenham and do the same there. Which
reminds me that we should be nearing Calne. You would like to
rest there?'

'I would rather go forward to Marlborough,' she answered feverishly, 'if
you could send to Chippenham to tell them I am safe? I would rather go
back at once, and quietly.'

'To be sure,' he said, patting her hand. 'To be sure, to be sure,' he
repeated, his voice shaking as if he wrestled with some emotion.
'You'll he glad to be with--with your mother.'

Julia wondered a little at his tone, but in the main he had described
her feelings. She had gone through so many things that, courageous as
she was, she longed for rest and a litt