'The threats of a disappointed man seldom come to anything, and as there was no conceivable way in which he could injure me his menaces really meant nothing. I have come across him four or five times since. I dare say that I should have met him oftener were I a regular attendant on racecourses, but it is years since I have been to one, and only did it to-day because Dorothy had set her heart on seeing the Oaks for the first time. However, whenever I have met him he has never failed to thrust himself upon me, and to show that his animosity is as bitter as it was on the day that I refused to appoint him steward. He left my neighbourhood at once, turned the stock into money, and as I know that he came into three or four thousand pounds at his father's death he had every chance of doing well. I believe that he did do well on the turf for a time, but the usual end came to that. When I met him last, some seven or eight years ago, I happened to be with a member of the Jockey Club who knew something of the fellow. He told me that he had been for a time a professional betting man, but had become involved in some extremely shady transactions, and had been warned off the turf, and was now only to be seen at open meetings, and had more than once had a narrow escape of being lynched by the crowd for welshing. From his appearance to-day it is evident that he is still a hanger-on of racecourses. I saw he had the name of Marvel on his hat. I should say that probably he appears with a fresh name each time. I think the chance of meeting him has had something to do with my giving up going to races altogether. It is not pleasant being insulted by a disreputable-looking scoundrel, in the midst of a crowd of people.' 'He has never done you any harm, Mr. Hawtrey?' Captain Hamilton asked, 'because certainly it seemed to me there was a ring of triumphant malice in his voice.' 'Certainly not, to my knowledge,' Mr. Hawtrey replied. 'Once or twice there have been stacks burnt down on the estate, probably the work of some malicious fellow, but I have had no reason for suspecting Truscott, and indeed, as the damage fell on the tenant and not on me, it would have been at best a very small gratification of spite, and I can hardly fancy he would have gone to the trouble and expense of travelling down to Lincolnshire for so small a gratification of his ill-will to me. Besides, had he had a hand in it, it would have been the stables and the house itself that would have been endangered.' 'The same idea struck me that occurred to Hampton,' Danvers said, 'but I suppose it was fancy. It sounded to me as if he had already paid, to some extent, the debt he spoke of, or as if he had no doubt whatever that he should do so in the future.' The subject dropped, but when, after leaving, Hampton went into the Club to which Danvers belonged, to smoke a cigar, he returned to it.