tic regarding the man. He pictured him as either a
bit of a fawner, who would cringe through the year, or a keen-headed
business man, who would go through it with a steel-trap mouth, and an eye
to every weakness in his fellow-workers. Certainly neither type he
pictured appealed to him. Yet he felt confident he would find one of the
two, and had already conceived a strong prejudice against Antony Gray.
From which regrettable fact it will be seen that he was committing the
sin of rash judgment.

It was not altogether surprising, therefore, that his mood was nearly as
grey as the atmosphere.

He sighed heavily, and shook his head, somewhat after the fashion of a
big dog. Reasons, partly mental, partly physical were responsible for the
shake. In the first place it was an attempt to dispel mental depression;
in the second place it was to free his eyebrows and eyelashes from the
rain drops clinging to them, since the rain was descending in a grey
misty veil.

With the shake, an idea struck him.

Why not confront the embodied scheme at once? Why not interview this
preposterous young man without delay, and be done with it?

He gave a brief direction to his coachman.

Five minutes later saw him standing at the gate of Copse Cottage, his
dog-cart driving away down the lane. It had been his own doing. He had
said he would walk home. An idiotic idea! What on earth had suggested it
to him?

However, it was done now.

He pushed open the gate, and walked up the little flagged path.

CHAPTER XII

CONCERNING MICHAEL FIELD

Antony, having seen a figure approaching the door, opened it, and
confronted a big, rugged-faced man, who looked at him somewhat grimly.

"Michael Field?" demanded the big man briefly.

"Sure, 'tis my name," he replied cheerfully. "You'll be Doctor Hilary,
I'm thinking. Won't you be coming in out of the wet." He flung wide the
door on the words.

"George found you all right?" queried Doctor Hilary stepping across the
threshold. He appeared totally oblivious of the fact that Antony's
presence made the success of George's search fairly obvious.

"He did that," returned Antony pushing forward a chair, but making no
attempt to sit down himself. The impulse had been upon him. Memory had
awakened just in time.

Doctor Hilary was silent. The reality was so entirely different from his
preconceived notions. The cheerful, clean-shaven young man, with the
Irish accent, standing before him in an attit