The car drove away, and the two men were left staring blankly into one another's eyes. "What's he to her?" Tom Hayhurst asked. But the Colonel shook his head. Here was a complication he had not foreseen. They turned and walked on together. Hayhurst was excited and inclined to hunt up Van Bleit and have an explanation, but his companion quashed the idea. "You are positive, I suppose, it was Van Bleit you saw?" "Of course I am. I got quite close to him once, and he grinned at me. I tell you, I didn't like that grin. I followed after him. I wanted to hit his face for showing his teeth at me, but he got into a taxi and drove off. He was looking sick too, beastly sick... There's been foul play,--I'm certain of it. I'd have suspected it by Van Bleit turning up and Grit not; but when I saw that beast's smug, vindictive grin, I knew it." "Well, I'll find out to-morrow," Colonel Grey said. "I'm going up the line with you. If anything's happened to Grit, whatever hole Van Bleit sneaks into, I'll see he pays." CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. Colonel Grey flung a suit of pyjamas and a few toilet accessories into a handbag and started out for the station. He was very much perturbed. Against his judgment he was greatly affected by Mrs Lawless' forebodings of the previous night; her softly uttered, prophetic--they seemed to him prophetic--words: "I have always felt those letters would cost another life." And as a foundation for this belief, Tom Hayhurst had turned up with his tale of suspicion and his unreserved misgivings that had insensibly given rise to similar doubts in his own mind. What a finish to a life of failure! ... If this, indeed, should prove the end! He recalled his recently formulated plans for the man's future... the chance he had thought to give him; and a hard look came into his eyes, his lips tightened. Those ashes in the grate had indeed cost dear! Tom Hayhurst was already on the platform when he made his appearance from the direction of the booking-office. He came forward quickly to meet him, his boyish face grave and concerned. "I saw Van Bleit come out of the shipping-office when I passed on my way here," he said. "I tried to stop him, but he eluded me, and I daren't give chase for fear of missing the train. I take it he was booking his passage to England. He means clearing out... Looks queer, eh?" Colonel Grey nodded briefly. "It'll take a bigger world than this for him to lose himself in, if he's killed Grit," the young man said.