“You may do that,” replied Mitchelbourne, “though to be sure, there are two of us in the like case.”

“Oh, as for me,” said his companion shrugging his shoulders, “I am on my way to be married.  My name is Lance,” and he blurted it out with a suddenness as though to catch Mitchelbourne off his guard.  Mitchelbourne bowed politely.

“And my name is Mitchelbourne, and I travel for my pleasure, though my pleasure is mere gipsying, and has nothing to do with marriage.  I take comfort from thinking that I have no friend from one rim of this country to the other, and that my closest intimates have not an inkling of my whereabouts.”

Mr. Lance received the explanation with undisguised suspicion, and at supper, which the two men took together, he would be forever laying traps.  Now he slipped some outlandish name or oath unexpectedly into his talk, and watched with a forward bend of his body to mark whether the word struck home; or again he mentioned some person with whom Mitchelbourne was quite unfamiliar.  At length, however, he seemed satisfied, and drawing up his chair to the fire, he showed himself at once in his true character, a loud and gusty boaster.

“An exchange of sentiments, Mr. Mitchelbourne, with a chance acquaintance over a pipe and a glass—­upon my word I think you are in the right of it, and there’s no pleasanter way of passing an evening.  I could tell you stories, sir; I served the King in his wars, but I scorn a braggart, and all these glories are over.  I am now a man of peace, and, as I told you, on my way to be married.  Am I wise?  I do not know, but I sometimes think it preposterous that a man who has been here and there about the world, and could, if he were so meanly-minded, tell a tale or so of success in gallantry, should hamper himself with connubial fetters.  But a man must settle, to be sure, and since the lady is young, and not wanting in looks or breeding or station, as I am told—­”

“As you are told?” interrupted Mitchelbourne.

“Yes, for I have never seen her.  No, not so much as her miniature.  Nor have I seen her mother either, or any of the family, except the father, from whom I carry letters to introduce me.  She lives in a house called ‘The Porch’ some miles from here.  There is another house hard by to it, I understand, which has long stood empty and I have a mind to buy it.  I bring a fortune, the lady a standing in the county.”

“And what has the lady to say to it?” asked Mitchelbourne.

“The lady!” replied Lance with a stare.  “Nothing but what is dutiful, I’ll be bound.  The father is under obligations to me.”  He stopped suddenly, and Mitchelbourne, looking up, saw that his mouth had fallen.  He sat with his eyes starting from his head and a face grey as lead, an image of panic pitiful to behold.  Mitchelbourne spoke but got no answer.  It seemed Lance could not answer—­he was so arrested by a paralysis of terror.  He sat staring straight in front of