Mr. Mallory's sauntering steps took him to the side of the reclaimed ground nearest to the railway line immediately under the embankment. To the casual observer his movements might have seemed somewhat erratic, and based only on a desire to get away from the chatter of the tea-tables and enjoy his cigar in peace. To any one really interested in his sudden detachment, however, it would have become apparent that there was system, carefully cloaked, perhaps, but none the less thorough, in every step he took. The place where, by Travers Nugent's advice, the picnic camp had been pitched lay some two hundred yards beyond the little glade at the side of the raised marshland path where Reggie Beauchamp and Enid Mallory had rested on the occasion of their prowl in the dark two evenings ago. Here, for the purpose of raising the railway to the proper level, the bank of the old river bed had been destroyed for a short distance, and instead of the miniature red cliffs, with their leafy screen of brambles and dwarf oaks, the marsh was skirted by the ugly side of the embankment. This break in the beauties of nature caused by the exigencies of engineering was but a score or two of yards in length, and it was while the train had been in view on this short section that the third-class passenger had played such strange antics. At the foot of the embankment the ground was swampy, nowhere yielding firm foothold, and here and there deepening into pools formed by the brackish water that had drained in from the tidal dykes at the other side of the path. For the most part the pools were surrounded and studded with sedges, which concealed them from passers-by. It was among these offshoots of the marsh that, at the risk of getting bogged in the quagmires, Mr. Mallory pottered about by himself. Poking and prying everywhere, he, however, devoted most attention to the pools in the ground nearest the fence at the base of the embankment, which were furthest removed, and therefore less visible, from the path. Ten minutes must have been spent in this apparently unprofitable employment when he suddenly straightened himself, and, regaining the firmer ground, made his way slowly back to the gay gathering under the trees. Many of the people had left the vicinity of the tables and were promenading the grassy strip while listening to the band. Montague Maynard, assiduous in his care for his guests, was a difficult man to catch, but Mr. Mallory managed to pin him at last as he was leaving one group to join another. Poles apart in temperament and in their life's experience, the genial manufacturer and the reserved old diplomatist had nevertheless conceived a sincere regard for each other during the former's sojourn in the neighbourhood. "Just a word with you," said Mr Mallory in a low voice, leading his host aside. "My dear fellow, certainly; but what is it? You look as though you had seen a ghost," replied the other.