“Do you know where Gorton might be found at present?”

“I swear before Heaven that I know nothing of the man, and have never heard of him since he went away,” cried Pike, with a burst of either fear or passion.  “He was a stranger to me when he came, and he was a stranger when he left.  I found out the little game he had come about, and saved your lordship from his clutches, which he doesn’t know to this day.  I know nothing else about him at all.”

“Well, good evening, Pike.  You need not put yourself out for nothing.”

He walked away, taking leave of the man as civilly as though he had been a respectable member of society.  It was not in Val’s nature to show discourtesy to any living being.  Why Pike should have shrunk from the questions he could not tell; but that he did shrink was evident; perhaps from a surly dislike to being questioned at all; but on the whole Lord Hartledon thought he had spoken the truth as to knowing nothing about Gorton.

Crossing the road, he turned into the field-path near the Rectory; it was a little nearer than the road-way, and he was in a hurry, for he had not thought to ask at what hour his wife dined, and might be keeping her waiting.

Who was this Pike, he wondered as he went along; as he had wondered before now.  When the man was off his guard, the roughness of his speech and demeanour was not so conspicuous; and the tone assumed a certain refinement that seemed to say he had some time been in civilized society.  Again, how did he live?  A tale was told in Calne of Pike’s having been disturbed at supper one night by a parcel of rude boys, who had seen him seated at a luxurious table; hot steak and pudding before him.  They were not believed, certainly; but still Pike must live; and how did he find the means to do so?  Why did he live there at all? what had caused him to come to Calne?  Who—­

These reflections might have lasted all the way home but for an interruption that drove every thought out of Lord Hartledon’s mind, and sent the heart’s blood coursing swiftly through his veins.  Turning a corner of the dark winding path, he came suddenly upon a lady seated on a bench, so close to the narrow path that he almost touched her in passing.  She seemed to have sat down for a moment to do something to her hat, which was lying in her lap, her hands busied with it.

A faint cry escaped her, and she rose up.  It was caused partly by emotion, partly by surprise at seeing him, for she did not know he was within a hundred miles of the place.  And very probably she would have liked to box her own ears for showing any.  The hat fell from her knees as she rose, and both stooped for it.

“Forgive me,” he said.  “I fear I have startled you.”

“I am waiting for papa,” she answered, in hasty apology for being found there.  And Lord Hartledon, casting his eyes some considerable distance ahead, discerned the indistinct forms of two persons talking together.  He understood the situation at once.  Dr. Ashton and his daughter had been to the cottages; and the doctor had halted on their return to speak to a day-labourer going home from his work, Anne walking slowly on.