“Perfectly.”

“Then he can have meant nothing by shaking hands with you.  It was an idle jest.  And now for your poachers.  You do not know who they were?  I will tell you.  The two who sat on the one side the fire were Professors Hanky and Panky from the City of the People who are above Suspicion.”

“No,” said George vehemently.  “Impossible.”

“Yes, my dear boy, quite possible, and whether possible or impossible, assuredly true.”

“And the third man?”

“The third man was dressed in the old costume.  He was in possession of several brace of birds.  The Professors vowed they had not eaten any—­”

“Oh yes, but they had,” blurted out George.

“Of course they had, my dear; and a good thing too.  Let us return to the man in the old costume.”

“That is puzzling.  Who did he say he was?”

“He said he was one of your men; that you had instructed him to provide you with three dozen quails for Sunday; and that you let your men wear the old costume if they had any of it left, provided—­”

This was too much for George; he started to his feet.  “What, my dearest mother, does all this mean?  You have been playing with me all through.  What is coming?”

“A very little more, and you shall hear.  This man staid with the Professors till nearly midnight, and then left them on the plea that he would finish the night in the Ranger’s shelter—­”

“Ranger’s shelter, indeed!  Why—­”

“Hush, my darling boy, be patient with me.  He said he must be up betimes, to run down the rest of the quails you had ordered him to bring you.  But before leaving the Professors he beguiled them into giving him up their permit.”

“Then,” said George, striding about the room with his face flushed and his eyes flashing, “he was the man with whom I walked down this afternoon.”

“Exactly so.”

“And he must have changed his dress?”

“Exactly so.”

“But where and how?”

“At some place not very far down on the other side the range, where he had hidden his old clothes.”

“And who, in the name of all that we hold most sacred, do you take him to have been—­for I see you know more than you have yet told me?”

“My son, he was Higgs the Sunchild, father to that boy whom I love next to my husband more dearly than any one in the whole world.”

She folded her arms about him for a second, without kissing him, and left him.  “And now,” she said, the moment she had closed the door—­“and now I may cry.”

* * * * *

She did not cry for long, and having removed all trace of tears as far as might be, she returned to her son outwardly composed and cheerful.  “Shall I say more now,” she said, seeing how grave he looked, “or shall I leave you, and talk further with you to-morrow?”

“Now—­now—­now!”