“I’m a complete stranger in these parts,” Hamilton informed her.  “I live nowadays mostly abroad, away above the Danube, and am only home for a holiday.”

“And I’m afraid you’ve completely spoilt your clothes,” she laughed, looking at his wet, muddy trousers and boots.

“Well, if I have, yours also are no further good.”

“Oh, my blouse will wash, and I shall send my skirt to the cleaners, and it will come back like new,” she answered.  “Women’s outdoor clothing never suffers by a wetting.  We’ll get Mrs. Wyatt to dry them, and then I’ll get home again to my aunt in Woodnewton.  Do you know the place?”

“I fancy I passed through it this morning.  One of those long, lean villages, with a church at the end.”

“That’s it—­the dullest little place in all England, I believe.”

He was struck by her charm of manner.  Though bedraggled and dishevelled, she was nevertheless delightful, and treated her sudden immersion with careless unconcern.

Why had Krail attempted to get rid of her in that manner?  What motive had he?

They reached the farmhouse, where Mrs. Wyatt, a stout, ruddy-faced woman, detecting their approach, met them upon the threshold.  “Lawks, Miss Heyburn! why, what’s happened?” she asked in alarm.

“I fell into the river, and this gentleman fished me out.  That’s all,” laughed the girl.  “We want to dry our things, if we may.”

In a few minutes, in bedrooms upstairs, they had exchanged their wet clothes for dry ones.  Then Edgar in the farmer’s Sunday suit of black, and Gabrielle in one of Mrs. Wyatt’s stuff dresses, in the big folds of which her slim little figure was lost, met again in the spacious farmhouse-kitchen below.

They laughed heartily at the ridiculous figure which each presented, and drank the glasses of hot milk which the farmer’s wife pressed upon them.

Old Miss Heyburn had been Mrs. Wyatt’s mistress years ago, when she was in service, therefore she was most solicitous after the girl’s welfare, and truth to tell looked askance at the good-looking stranger who had accompanied her.

Gabrielle, too, was puzzled to know why Mr. Hamilton should be there.  That he now lived abroad “beside the Danube” was all the information he had vouchsafed regarding himself, yet from certain remarks he had dropped she was suspicious.  She recollected only too vividly the occasion when they had met last, and what had occurred.

They sat together on the bench outside the house, enjoying the full sunshine, while the farmer’s wife chattered on.  A big fire had been made in the kitchen, and their clothes were rapidly drying.

Hamilton, by careful questions, endeavoured to obtain from the girl some information concerning her dealings with the man Krail.  But she was too wary.  It was evident that she had some distinct object in concealing the fact that he had deliberately flung her into the water after that heated altercation.