“Like a man what’s been in hell,” replied her husband dramatically.  “He’s as white as that piece of paper”—­pointing to the sheet of cooking paper with which Mrs. Judson had been conscientiously removing the grease from the chipped potatoes.  “And his eyes look wild.  He’s been walking, too—­must have walked twenty miles or thereabouts, I should think, for he seems dead beat and his boots are just a mask of mud.  His coat’s torn and splashed, as well—­as if he’d pushed his way through bushes and all, without ever stopping to see where he was going.”

“Then he’ll be wanting his dinner,” observed Mrs. Judson practically.  “I’ll dish it up—­’tisn’t what you might call actually spoiled as yet.”

“He won’t have any.  ‘Judson,’ he says to me, ’bring me a whisky-and-soda and some sandwiches.  I don’t want nothing else.  And then you can lock up and go to bed.’”

“Well, then, bless the man, look alive and get the whisky-and-soda and a tray ready whiles I cut the sandwiches,” exclaimed the excellent Mrs. Judson promptly, giving her bemused spouse a push in the direction of the pantry and herself bustling away to fetch a loaf of bread.

“Right you are.  But I was so took aback at the master’s appearance, Maria, you could have knocked me down with a feather.  I wonder if his young lady’s given him his congy?” he added reflectively.

Mrs. Judson did not stay to discuss the question, but set about preparing the sandwiches, and a few minutes later Judson carried into Trent’s own particular snuggery an attractive-looking little tray and placed it on a table at his master’s elbow.

The man had not been far out in his reckoning when he opined that his master had walked “twenty miles or thereabouts.”  When he had quitted Haven Woods, Garth had started off, heedless of the direction he took, and, since then, he had been tramping, almost blindly, up hill and down dale, over hedges, through woods, along the shore, stumbling across the rocks, anywhere, anywhere in the world to get away from the maddening, devil-ridden thoughts which had pursued him since the brief meeting with a woman whose hyacinth eyes recalled the immeasurable anguish of years ago and threatened the joy which the future seemed to promise.

His face was haggard.  Heavy lines had graved themselves about his mouth, and beneath drawn brows his eyes glowed like sombre fires.

Judson paused irresolutely beside him.

“Shall I pour you out a whisky, sir?” he inquired.

Trent started.  He had been oblivious of the man’s entrance.

“No.  I’ll do it myself—­presently.  Lock up and go to bed,” he answered brusquely.

But Judson still hesitated.  There was an expression of affectionate solicitude on his usually wooden face.

“Better have one at once, sir,” he said persuasively.  “And I think you’ll find the chicken sandwiches very good, sir, if you’ll excuse my mentioning it.”