e insisted on my packing at once and going up
with him to lodgings he had already taken in Fulham, to be near the
curio-shop in question. Thus in spite of myself, I fled from my foe
almost in the dead of night--but from Philip also.... My brother was
often at the South Kensington Museum, and, in order to make some sort of
secondary life for myself, I paid for a few lessons at the Art Schools.
I was coming back from them this evening, when I saw the abomination of
desolation walking alive down the long straight street and the rest is
as this gentleman has said.

"I've got only one thing to say. I don't deserve to be helped; and I
don't question or complain of my punishment; it is just, it ought to
have happened. But I still question, with bursting brains, how it can
have happened. Am I punished by miracle? or how can anyone but Philip
and myself know I gave him a tiny coin in the middle of the sea?"

"It is an extraordinary problem," admitted Flambeau.

"Not so extraordinary as the answer," remarked Father Brown rather
gloomily. "Miss Carstairs, will you be at home if we call at your Fulham
place in an hour and a half hence?"

The girl looked at him, and then rose and put her gloves on. "Yes," she
said, "I'll be there"; and almost instantly left the place.

That night the detective and the priest were still talking of the matter
as they drew near the Fulham house, a tenement strangely mean even for a
temporary residence of the Carstairs family.

"Of course the superficial, on reflection," said Flambeau, "would think
first of this Australian brother who's been in trouble before,
who's come back so suddenly and who's just the man to have shabby
confederates. But I can't see how he can come into the thing by any
process of thought, unless..."

"Well?" asked his companion patiently.

Flambeau lowered his voice. "Unless the girl's lover comes in, too,
and he would be the blacker villain. The Australian chap did know that
Hawker wanted the coin. But I can't see how on earth he could know that
Hawker had got it, unless Hawker signalled to him or his representative
across the shore."

"That is true," assented the priest, with respect.

"Have you noted another thing?" went on Flambeau eagerly, "this Hawker
hears his love insulted, but doesn't strike till he's got to the soft
sand-hills, where he can be victor in a mere sham-fight. If he'd struck
amid rocks and sea, he might have hurt his ally."

"That is true again,"