ser.

Within three hours he was seated in the dining-room of the Maples Inn
and reading a newspaper. It was the off season, and the hotel contained
hardly any guests, but he had ascertained that Winifred and her aunt
were certainly there. For a long time, however, none but a couple of
German waiters broke his vigil, for this thing happened before the war.
One stout fellow went away. The other, a mere boy, remained and flecked
dust with a napkin, wondering, no doubt, why the motorist sat hours at
the table. At last, near noon, Rachel Craik, with a plaid shawl draped
around her angular shoulders, and Winifred, in a new dress of French
gray, came in.

Winifred started and cast down her eyes on seeing who was there.
Carshaw, on his part, apparently had no eyes for her, but kept a look
over the top of his newspaper at Rachel Craik, to see whether she
recognized him, supposing it to be a fact that he had been seen with
Winifred. She seemed, however, hardly to be aware of his presence.

The girl and the woman sat some distance from him--the room was
large--near a window, looking out, and anon exchanging a remark in
quiet voices. Then a lunch was brought into them, Carshaw meantime
buried in the newspaper except when he stole a glance at Winifred.

His hope was that the woman would leave the girl alone, if only for one
minute, for he had a note ready to slip into Winifred's hand, beseeching
her to meet him that evening at seven in the lane behind the church for
some talk "on a matter of high importance."

But fortune was against him. Rachel Craik, after her meal, sat again at
the window, took up some knitting, and plied needles like a slow
machine. The afternoon wore on. Finally, Carshaw rang to order his own
late lunch, and the German boy brought it in. He rose to go to table;
but, as if the mere act of rising spurred him to further action, he
walked straight to Winifred. The hours left him were few, and his
impatience had grown to the point of desperateness now. He bowed and
held out the paper, saying:

"Perhaps you have not seen this morning's newspaper?" At the same time
he presented her the note.

Miss Craik was sitting two yards away, half-turned from Winifred, but at
this afternoon offer of the morning's paper she glanced round fully at
Winifred, and saw, that as Winifred took the newspaper, she tried to
grasp with it a note also which lay on it--tried, but failed, for the
note escaped, slipped down on Winifred's