"Oh, well, he comes over to Haredale Park pretty frequently. My father has struck up a sort of intimacy with him. Between ourselves, I detest the man. He goes everywhere in virtue of his money, but he is not a gentleman, as anybody can see. I am going to tell you a secret, Alice, which you must not tell to a soul. Mr. Copley is anxious to marry me. Needless to say, I have given him very little encouragement." "Of course, you wouldn't," Alice said. "You haven't forgotten what you used to tell me at school. Don't you remember how you confided in me about Harry Fielden, and how you used to read part of his letters? I never knew what became of him." "No, I never told you. Well, perhaps I will to-night before we go to bed. It was a very unfortunate business altogether. There was nothing wrong about Harry. He was merely very reckless and extravagant, and got rid of his money and went abroad. He hadn't a single penny left, and there was an end of my romance. It sounds very commonplace, but it is just as serious to me as if it were one of those pretty stories we read in books. So now Harry has nothing and I have nothing, and some day or other I shall end, I suppose, in marrying a man for the sake of a home. But you may be certain it won't be Mr. Raymond Copley." "How very sad!" Alice said sympathetically. "Do you ever see Mr. Fielden?" "Oh, yes," May laughed unsteadily. "In fact, he is coming towards us now." CHAPTER XXIV A STRANGE VISITOR Interest as well as sympathy lit up Alice Carden's eyes. She looked with something more than curiosity at the well-set-up young man who came striding across the turf towards them. May reached over and laid an impressive hand upon her friend's arm. "I am not sure I meant to tell you so much," she whispered. "I spoke on the spur of the moment. Harry came back to England unexpectedly a little time ago, and I met him by accident in London. It was a bit romantic in its way, but I'll tell you about that later. He came down here to his old home to get some of his belongings, and, to his surprise, nobody recognized him. I was the only person who knew him, excepting an old stud-groom who had been in the employ of the Fieldens for the last fifty years. When he found that no one knew him, he thought he might procure some congenial occupation in his own neighbourhood. It was part of the same romance that he should obtain this employment at the hands of Mr. Copley. But, of course, he does not pass in his own name. Please to recollect that he is Mr. Field. Now, my dear, you have the whole story in a nutshell. It is like the plot of a novel. I am the beautiful heroine, beloved by the rich bounder, while my heart is given to the handsome penniless young man of good family who is in the villain's employ. Don't think me heartless because I speak so lightly of it, and don't forget to behave as if I had not told you this story. Mr. Field is an old friend of ours, and that's the only thing you have to remember."