east, a hint of determination and
shrewdness that I felt must be inherited from the sound yeoman stock of
his father.

Our pause of mutual investigation ended in a smile. He held out his hand
with a pleasant frankness that somehow proclaimed the added colonial
quality of him.

"That's all right," he said, "but anyway I couldn't give you any
confidences, yet. I don't know myself, you see."

"Are you going back to the Hall?" I asked.

"I don't know that, either," he said, and added, "I shan't go back as the
chauffeur, anyway."

And, indeed, there was little of the chauffeur in his appearance, just
then. He was wearing a light tweed suit and brown brogues, and his clothes
sat upon him with just that touch of familiarity, of negligence, that your
professional servant's mufti can never accomplish.

There was a new air of restlessness about him since he had put me under
cross-examination. He looked round him in the broadening day as if he were
in search of something, or some one, hopefully yet half-despairingly
expected.

"Look here--if you'd sooner I went..." I began.

He had risen to his feet after his last statement and was looking back
towards the Hall, but he faced me again when I spoke.

"Oh, no!" he said with a hint of weariness.

"It isn't likely that..." He broke off and threw himself moodily down on
the grass again before he continued, "It's not that I couldn't trust you.
But you can see for yourself that it's better I shouldn't. When you get
back to the Hall, you might be asked questions and for your own sake it'd
look better if you didn't know the answers."

"Oh, quite," I agreed, and added, "I'll stay and see the sun rise."

"You won't see the sun for some time," he remarked. "There'll be a lot of
cloud and mist for it to break through. It's going to be a scorcher
to-day."

"Good," I replied; and for a few minutes we discussed weather signs like
any other conventional Englishmen. A natural comparison led us presently
to the subject of Canada. But through it all he bore himself as a man with
a preoccupation he could not forget; and I was looking for a good opening
to make an excuse of fatigue and go back to the Hall, when something of
the thought that was intriguing him broke through the surface of his talk.

"I'm going back there as soon as I can," he said with a sudden impatience.
"There's room to turn round in Canada without hitting up against a notice
board and trespassing on the preserves of