r. . . .? And then there's another
bit. . . . 'Men like him can't be replaced.' Eh! my boy. . . . Can't
be replaced. You couldn't say that, sir, about yon pimply ferret I was
telling you about."

"You could not, old John," said Vane. "You could not." He stood up
and gave the letter back. "It's a fine letter; a letter any parent
might be proud to get about his son."

"Aye," said the old man, "he was a good boy was Bob. None o' this
new-fangled nonsense about him." He put the letter carefully in his
pocket. "Mother and me, sir, we often just looks at it of an evening.
It sort of comforts her. . . . Somehow it's hard to think of him
dead. . . ." His lips quivered for a moment, and then suddenly he
turned fiercely on Vane. "And yet, I tells you, sir, that I'd sooner
Bob was dead over yonder--aye--I'd sooner see him lying dead at my
feet, than that he should ever have learned such doctrines as be flying
about these days."

Thus did Vane leave the old man, and as he walked down the road he saw
him still standing by his gate thumping with his stick on the pavement,
and shaking his head slowly. It was only when Vane got to the turning
that old John picked up his can and continued his interrupted
watering. . . . And it seemed to Vane that he had advanced another
step towards finding himself.

CHAPTER IX

Vane, conscious that he was a little early for lunch, idled his way
through the woods. He was looking forward, with a pleasure he did not
attempt to analyse, to seeing Joan in the setting where she belonged.
And if occasionally the thought intruded itself that it might be
advisable to take a few mental compass bearings and to ascertain his
exact position before going any further, he dismissed them as
ridiculous. Such thoughts have been similarly dismissed before. . . .
It was just as Vane was abusing himself heartily for being an ass that
he saw her coming towards him through a clearing in the undergrowth.
She caught sight of him at the same moment and stopped short with a
swift frown.

"I didn't know you knew this path," she said as he came up to her.

"I'm sorry--but I do. You see, I knew Rumfold pretty well in the old
days. . . . Is that the reason of the frown?"

"I wasn't particularly anxious to see you or anybody," she remarked
uncompromisingly. "I wanted to try to think something out. . . ."

"Then we are a well met pair," laughed Vane. "I will walk a few paces
behind you, and we wi