y
provided some small ground for disappointment for, in company with many
ladies of the older school, Mrs. Barraclough dearly loved bestowing an
occasional rebuke in words calculated to improve and uplift. This,
however, was a trivial concern weighed against the obvious advantages
of loyalty, good nature and efficiency.

The house in which Mrs. Barraclough dwelt was called "Chestnuts" and it
lay a few miles off the London Exeter main road. To reach it by rail
you alighted at Digby Halt and were met by either a car or a governess
cart. Mrs. Barraclough possessed both and invariably despatched the
governess cart to meet her favourite guests, on the theory that a horse
is more of a compliment than a "snuffly engine." As a matter of fact
the car was a very sterling, if rather old, Panhard Levassor and in no
sense could be accused of snuffling.

When once an enquiring visitor, after vainly searching the garden for
chestnut trees, asked why the house was so named, Mrs. Barraclough
replied--

"The chestnuts apply to myself and not to the vegetation. I am an old
woman with an incurable habit of repeating the same anecdotes over and
over again."

To this sanctuary of mid-Victorian calm Isabel Irish came in the late
afternoon of the day following Anthony's departure into the unknown.
To wait in London for three weeks without word or message was more than
she could tolerate. Accordingly she sent a wire to Mrs. Barraclough
and followed close upon its heels. Of the presence of Mr. Harrison
Smith in the next compartment of the corridor carriage, she, of course,
knew nothing, and this circumstance provided that enthusiastic
investigator with every opportunity of studying her without attracting
attention to himself.

On the pretext of smoking a pipe he lounged up and down the corridor,
every now and then glancing at Isabel, who sat alone with compressed
lips and chin sunk on her chest. He concluded from her attitude and
expression that she must have heard of Barraclough's capture but later
on another impression superseded the first, for every now and then a
light of excitement and enthusiasm would leap into her eyes as though
in imagination she were following her lover along the ways of desperate
adventure. Harrison Smith shook his head.

"Don't know what to make of it," he muttered. "Certain sure they've
got the man yet--I don't know----"

Once he saw her do a very odd thing but foolishly enough paid little
heed to