“Where is that?” asked Croft.

“It’s about two miles out on the Westerville road,” said the little man.  “If I’d knowed you wanted to see him, I’d ’a told you to keep right on, and you could ’a stopped with Mrs Keswick over night.”

Lawrence wished to ask some questions about Mrs Null, but he was afraid to do so lest he might excite suspicions by connecting her with Keswick.  If the latter had gone two miles out of town, perhaps she had not yet seen him.

The room in which Lawrence slept that night was to him a very odd one.  It was a long apartment, at one end of which was a clean, comfortable bed, a couple of chairs, and a table on which was a basin and pitcher.  At the other end were piles of new-looking boxes, containing groceries of various kinds, rolls of cotton cloth and other dry goods, and, what attracted his attention more than anything else, a vast number of bright tin cans, bearing on their sides brilliant pictures of tomatoes, peaches, green corn, and other preservable eatables.  These were evidently the reserved stores of the establishment, and they were so different from the bedroom decorations to which he was accustomed, that it quite pleased Lawrence to think that with all his experience in life he was now lodged in a manner entirely novel to him.  As he lay awake looking at the moonlight glittering on the sides of the multitude of cans, the thought came into his mind that this had probably been the room of the Nulls when they were here.

“As this is the only house in the place where travellers are entertained,” he said to himself, “of course they must have come to it.  And as they are not here now, it is quite plain that they must have gone away.  I am very glad of it, especially if they left before Keswick arrived, for their departure probably prevented an awkward situation.  But I shall ask the storekeeper no questions about these people.  There is no better way of giving inquisitive folk the entree to your affairs than by asking questions.  Of course there was no reason why they should stay here after they had successfully traced Keswick to this part of the country; and every reason, if they wanted to enjoy themselves, why they should go away.  But I can’t help being sorry that I did not meet the young woman, and have an opportunity of paying her for her trouble, and giving her a few words of advice in regard to her action, or, rather, non-action in this matter.  She has a fine head for business, but I should like to feel certain that she understands that her business with me is over.”

And he turned his eyes from the glittering cans, and slept.

The next morning, Lawrence Croft rode on to Mrs Keswick’s house, and when he reached the second, or inner gate, he saw, on the other side of it, an elderly female, wearing a purple sun-bonnet and carrying a purple umbrella.  There was something very eccentric about the garb of this elderly personage, and many an inexperienced city man would have taken her for a retired nurse, or some other domestic retainer of the family, but there was a steadfastness in her gaze, and a fire in her eye, which indicated to Lawrence that she was one much more accustomed to give orders than to take them.  He raised his hat very politely, and asked if Mr Keswick was to be found there.