n after
an hour or two and have a dish of tea with you."

Outside the mulberry servant was sitting behind a fine black horse in
a phaeton, which had two seats in front and two behind. Tom Spring
was about to climb up beside him, when the servant whispered that his
directions were that he should sit behind. Then the phaeton whirled
away, while the excited landlord, more convinced than ever that there
was something in the wind, rushed into his stable-yard with shrieks to
his ostlers, and in a very few minutes was in hot pursuit, waiting at
every cross-road until he could hear tidings of a black horse and a
mulberry livery.

The phaeton meanwhile drove in the direction of Crowborough. Some miles
out it turned from the high-road into a narrow lane spanned by a tawny
arch of beech trees. Through this golden tunnel a lady was walking, tall
and graceful, her back to the phaeton. As it came abreast of her she
stood aside and looked up, while the coachman pulled up the horse.

"I trust that you are at your best," said she, looking very earnestly at
the prize-fighter. "How do you feel?"

"Pretty tidy, ma'am, I thank you."

"I will get up beside you, Johnson. We have some way to go. You will
drive through the Lower Warren, and then take the lane which skirts the
Gravel Hanger. I will tell you where to stop. Go slowly, for we are not
due for twenty minutes."

Feeling as if the whole business was some extraordinary dream, the young
pugilist passed through a network of secluded lanes, until the phaeton
drew up at a wicket gate which led into a plantation of firs, choked
with a thick undergrowth. Here the lady descended and beckoned Spring to
alight.

"Wait down the lane," said she to the coachman. "We shall be some little
time. Now, Mr. Spring, will you kindly follow me? I have written a
letter which makes an appointment."

She passed swiftly through the plantation by a tortuous path, then
over a stile, and past another wood, loud with the deep chuckling of
pheasants. At the farther side was a fine rolling park, studded with
oak trees, and stretching away to a splendid Elizabethan mansion, with
balustraded terraces athwart its front. Across the park, and making for
the wood, a solitary figure was walking.

The lady gripped the prize-fighter by the wrist. "That is your man,"
said she.

They were standing under the shadow of the trees, so that he was very
visible to them, while they were out of his sight. Tom Spring looked