attract any one's attention when I wanted to alight, and had had to go on to Portsmouth (where the train stopped for good) before I could make my presence and my predicament known. This trivial incident had never been forgotten by my family—so much so, that I had often regretted the hilarious spirit of pure comedy at my own expense which had prompted me to relate it to them.

Now was the time to show what metal I was made of. My spirits rose as I felt I could rely on myself to be cautious, resourceful, bold. I sat on, outwardly composed, but inwardly excited, straining my ears for a sign that the fugitive was in the porch. I supposed I should presently hear a light tap on my parlour window, which was close to the outer door.

But none came. More than an hour passed. It had long been perfectly dark. What could have happened? Had the poor creature been dogged and waylaid by those two policemen after all? Was it possible that they had seen us standing together at the stile, where she had so inconsiderately joined me for a moment? At last I became so nervous that I went to the outer door, opened it softly, and looked out. She was so near me that I very nearly screamed.

"How long have you been here?" I whispered.

"Close on an hour."

"Why didn't you tap on the window or something? I was waiting to let you in."

"I dared not do that. It might have been the kitchen window for all I knew, and then your servant would have seen me."

"But the kitchen is the other side."

"Indeed! And where is the stable?"

"At the bottom of the garden, away from the road."

"How are we going to get to it?"

"We can only get to it through the garden, now the back way is closed. I closed it because the village children——"

"Had not you better shut the door? If any one passed down the road, they would see it was open."

"It's as dark as pitch."

"Yes, but there's a little light from within. I can see you from outside quite plainly standing in the doorway."

I led her indoors, and locked and bolted the door.

"What is this room?"

"The houseplace. I have my meals here. I live very primitively. My idea is——"

"Then your servant may come in at any moment to lay your supper."

I could not say that she seemed nervous or frightened, but the way she cut me short showed that she was so in reality. I was not offended, for I am the first to make allowance when rudeness is not intentional. I led the way hastily into the parlour.

"She never comes in here," I said reassuringly, "after she has once brought in the lamp. I am supposed to be working, and must not be disturbed."

"I'm not fit to come in," she said.

And in truth she was not. She was caked with mud and dirt from head to foot, an appalling figure in the lamplight. The rain dripped from her hair, her sinister clothing, her whole person. She looked as if she must have hidden in a wet ditch. I gazed horror-struck at my speckless matting and pale Oriental rugs. I had never allowed a child or dog in the house for fear of the matting, except of course my poor Lindo, who had died a few months previously, and whom I had taught to wipe his feet on the mat.

A ghost of a smile twitched her grey mouth.

"Is not that the Times?" she said. "Spread it out four thick, and lay it on the floor."

I did so, and she stepped carefully on to it.

"Now," she said, standing on a great advertisement of a universal history—"now that I am not damaging the furniture, pull yourself together and think. How am I to get to the stable? I can't stop here."

She could not indeed. I felt I might be absolutely powerless to get the muddy footprints out of the matting. And no doubt there were some in the houseplace too.

"If I go through the scullery, I may be seen," she said, the water pattering off her on to the newspaper. "So lucky you take in the Times; it's printed on such thick paper. Where does that window look out?"

She pointed to the window at the farther end of the room.

"On to the garden."

"Capital! Then we can get out through it, of course, without going through the scullery."

I had not thought of that. I opened the window, and she was through it in two cautious strides.

"Now," she said, looking back at me, "I'm comparatively safe for the moment, and so is the matting. But before we do anything more, get a duster—a person like you is sure to have a duster in a drawer. Just so, there it is. Now wipe up the marks of my muddy feet in the room we first came into as well as this, and then see to the paint of the window. I have probably smirched it. Then roll up the Times tight, and put it in the waste-paper basket."

She watched me obey her.

"Having obliterated all traces of crime," she said when I had finished, "suppose we go on to the stable. Let me help you through the window. I will wipe my hands on the grass first. And would not you be wise to put on that little shawl I see on the sofa? It is getting cold."

The window was only a yard from the ground, and I got out somehow, encumbered in my shawl, which a grateful reader had crocheted for me. She had, however, to help me in again directly I was out, for, between us, we had forgotten the stable key, which was underneath the cushion of my armchair.

The rest was plain sailing. We stole down the garden path to the stable, and I unlocked the door and let her in.

"Kindly lock me in and take away the key," she said, vanishing past me into the darkness, and I thought I detected a tone of relief in her brisk, matter-of-fact voice.

"I will bring some food as soon as I can," I whispered. "If I knock three times, you will know it's only me."

"Don't knock at all," she said; "it might be noticed. Why should you knock to go into your own stable?"

"I won't, then. And how about your wet things?"

"That's nothing. I'm accustomed to being wet."

I crawled back to the cottage, and managed to scramble in by the parlour window, only to sink once more into my armchair in a state of collapse. I had always entered so acutely into the joys and sorrows of others, their love affairs, their difficulties, their bereavements (I had in this way led such a full life), that I was surprised at this juncture to find my nervous force so exhausted, until I remembered that ardent natures who give out a great deal in the way of helpfulness and interest are bound to suffer when the reaction comes. The reaction had come for me now. I saw only too plainly the folly I had been guilty of in harbouring a total stranger, the trouble I should probably get into, the difficulty that a nature naturally frank and open to a fault would find in keeping up a deception. I doubted my own powers, everything. The truth was—but I did not realise it till afterwards—that I had missed my tea.

I could hear my servant laying my evening meal in the houseplace. In a few minutes she tapped to tell me it was ready, and I rose mechanically to obey the summons. And then, to my horror, I found I was still in morning dress. For the first time for years I had not dressed for dinner. What would she think if she saw me? But it was too late to change now; I must just go in as I was. My whole life seemed dislocated, torn up by the roots.

There was not much to eat. Half a very small cold chicken, a lettuce, and a little custard pudding, fortunately very nutritious, being made with Eustace Miles's proteid. There were, however, a loaf and butter and plasmon biscuits on the sideboard. I cut up as much as I dared of the chicken, and put it