“But why didn’t you cry out to me?” I said.  “I should not have run if I had known that I had an ally there.”

“To run was exactly what I wanted you to do,” Ray answered.  “You had the dispatch-box, and I wanted to see you safe away.”

I glanced at his bandaged head and arm.

“I suppose that I ought to apologize to you,” I said.

“Under the circumstances,” he declared, “we will cry quits.”

Then as we walked together in the glittering spring sunshine, this big silent man and I, there came upon me a swift, poignant impulse, the keener perhaps because of the loneliness of my days, to implore him to unravel all the things which lay between us.  I wanted the story of that night, of my concern in it, stripped bare.  Already my lips were opened, when round the corner of the rough lane by which Braster Grange was approached on this side came a doctor’s gig.  Ray shaded his eyes and gazed at its occupant.

“Is this Bouriggs, Ducaine?” he asked, “the man who shot with us?”

“It is Dr. Bouriggs,” I answered.

Ray stopped the gig and exchanged greetings with the big sandy-haired man, who held a rein in each hand as though he were driving a market wagon.  They chatted for a moment or two, idly enough, as it seemed to me.

“Any one ill at the Grange, doctor?” Ray asked at length.

The doctor looked at him curiously.

“I have just come from there,” he answered.  “There is nothing very seriously wrong.”

“Can you tell me if Lord Blenavon is there?” Ray asked.

The doctor hesitated.

“It was hinted to me, Colonel Ray,” he said, “that my visit to the Grange was not to be spoken of.  You will understand, of course, that the etiquette of our profession—­”

“Quite right,” Ray interrupted.  “The fact is, Lady Angela is very anxious about her brother, who did not return to Rowchester last night, and she has sent us out as a search party.  Of course, if you were able to help us she would be very gratified.”

The doctor hesitated.

“The Duke and, in fact, all the family have always been exceedingly kind to me,” he remarked, looking straight between his horse’s ears.  “Under the circumstances you mention, if you were to assert that Lord Blenavon was at Braster Grange I do not think that I should contradict you.”

Ray smiled.

“Thank you, doctor,” he said.  “Good morning.”

The doctor drove on, and we pursued our way.

“It was a very dark night,” Ray said, half to himself, “but if Blenavon was the man I hit he ought to have a cracked skull.”

After all, our interrogation of the doctor was quite unnecessary.  We were admitted at once to the Grange by a neatly-dressed parlour-maid.  Mrs. Smith-Lessing was at home, and the girl did not for a moment seem to doubt her mistress’s willingness to receive us.  As she busied herself poking the fire and opening wider the thick curtains, Ray asked her another question.