r. Whatever
deserts he might place between himself and Mrs. Fairmile, Daphne would
imagine them together.

Meanwhile, there was that Lilliput bond, that small, chafing
entanglement, which Chloe had flung round him in her persistence about
the letters. There was, no doubt, a horrid scandal brewing about Mrs.
Weightman, Chloe's old friend--a friend of his own, too, in former days.
Through Chloe's unpardonable indiscretions he knew a great deal more
about this lady's affairs than he had ever wished to know. And he well
remembered the letter in question: a letter on which the political life
or death of one of England's most famous men might easily turn,
supposing it got out. But the letter was safe enough; not the least
likely to come into dangerous hands, in spite of Chloe's absurd
hypotheses. It was somewhere, no doubt, among the boxes in the locked
room; and who could possibly get hold of it? At the same time he
realized that as long as he had not found and returned it she would
still have a certain claim upon him, a certain right to harass him with
inquiries and confidential interviews, which, as a man of honour, he
could not altogether deny.

A pheasant got up across a ploughed field where in the mild season the
young corn was already green. Roger shot, and missed; the bird floated
gaily down the wind, and the head keeper, in disgust, muttered bad
language to the underling beside him.

But after that Barnes was twice as cheerful as before. He whistled as he
walked; his shooting recovered; and by the time the dark fell, keepers
and beaters were once more his friends.

The fact was that just as he missed the pheasant he had taken his
resolution, and seen his way. He would have another determined hunt for
that letter; he would also find and destroy his own letters to
Chloe--those she had returned to him--which must certainly never fall
into Daphne's hands; and then he would go away to London or the North,
to some place whence he could write both to Chloe Fairmile and to his
wife. Women like Daphne were too quick; they could get out a dozen words
to your one; but give a man time, and he could express himself. And,
therewith, a great tenderness and compunction in this man's heart, and a
steady determination to put things right. For was not Daphne Beatty's
mother? and was he not in truth very fond of her, if only she would let
him be?

Now then for the hunt. As he had never destroyed the letters, they must
exist; but,