“All right, auntie, I won’t give you away,” Austin assured her.  “You’d better tell him what a horrid dunce I am before I come in, and then he won’t be so surprised if I do put my foot in it.  After all, we’re not sure that he’s been a traveller.  He may be a painter.  Lubin says that lots of painters come down here sometimes.  My own idea is that he’ll turn out to be nothing but a bank manager, or perhaps a stockbroker.  I expect he’s rolling in money.”

Austin had said nothing to his aunt about the lady who had looked over the gate for one brief moment and then so unaccountably disappeared.  What would have been the use?  He felt baffled and perplexed, but it was not likely that Aunt Charlotte would be able to throw any light upon the mystery.  She would probably say that he had been dreaming, or that he only imagined it, or that it was an old gipsy woman, or one of the MacTavish girls playing a trick, or something equally fatuous and absurd.  But the more he thought of it the more he was convinced of the reality of the whole thing, and of the existence of some great marvel.  That he had seen the lady was beyond question.  That she had vanished the next moment was also beyond question.  That she had hidden behind a tree or gone crouching in a ditch was inconceivable, to say the least of it; so fair and gracious a person would scarcely descend to such undignified manoeuvres, worthy only of a hoydenish peasant girl.  And yet, what could possibly have become of her?  The enigma was quite unsolvable.

The next morning brought with it a surprise.  Aunt Charlotte had some very important documents that she wanted to deposit with her bankers—­so important, indeed, that she did not like to entrust them to the post; so Austin, half in jest, proposed that he should go to town himself by an early train, and leave them at the bank in person.  To his no small astonishment, Aunt Charlotte took him at his word, though not without some misgivings; instructed him to send her a telegram as soon as ever the papers were in safe custody, and assured him that she would not have a moment’s peace until she got it.  Austin, much excited at the prospect of a change, packed the documents away in the pistol-pocket of his trousers, and started off immediately after breakfast in high spirits.  The journey was a great delight to him, as he had not travelled by railway for nearly a couple of years, and he derived immense amusement from watching his fellow-passengers and listening to their conversation.  There was a party of very serious-minded American tourists, with an accent reverberant enough to have cracked the windows of the carriage had they not, luckily, been open; and from the talk of these good people he learnt that they came from a place called New Jerusalem, that they intended to do London in two days, and that they answered to the names of Mr Thwing, Mr Moment, and Mr and Mrs Skull.  The gentlemen were arrayed in shiny broad-cloth, with narrow black ties, tied in a careless bow; the lady