hink you are really on the side of the people and I'm sure you're a
brave man. A lot braver than you know, perhaps. We daren't touch
what you propose with a barge pole; and so far from wanting you in
the old party, we'd rather you ran your own risk by yourself. But
because I like you and respect your pluck, I'll do you a good turn
before we part. I don't want you to waste time barking up the wrong
tree. You talk about how the new squire got the money to buy, and
the ruin of the old squire, and all the rest of it. Well, I'll give
you a hint about that, a hint about something precious few people
know."

"I am very grateful," said Fisher, gravely. "What is it?"

"It's in two words," said the other. "The new squire was quite poor
when he bought. The old squire was quite rich when he sold."

Horne Fisher looked at him thoughtfully as he turned away abruptly
and busied himself with the papers on his desk. Then Fisher uttered
a short phrase of thanks and farewell, and went out into the street,
still very thoughtful.

His reflection seemed to end in resolution, and, falling into a more
rapid stride, he passed out of the little town along a road leading
toward the gate of the great park, the country seat of Sir Francis
Verner. A glitter of sunlight made the early winter more like a late
autumn, and the dark woods were touched here and there with red and
golden leaves, like the last rays of a lost sunset. From a higher
part of the road he had seen the long, classical facade of the great
house with its many windows, almost immediately beneath him, but
when the road ran down under the wall of the estate, topped with
towering trees behind, he realized that it was half a mile round to
the lodge gates. After walking for a few minutes along the lane,
however, he came to a place where the wall had cracked and was in
process of repair. As it was, there was a great gap in the gray
masonry that looked at first as black as a cavern and only showed at
a second glance the twilight of the twinkling trees. There was
something fascinating about that unexpected gate, like the opening
of a fairy tale.

Horne Fisher had in him something of the aristocrat, which is very
near to the anarchist. It was characteristic of him that he turned
into this dark and irregular entry as casually as into his own front
door, merely thinking that it would be a short cut to the house. He
made his way through the dim wood for some distance and with some
diffi