"And you did not return once during the whole year?" I asked, with affected carelessness. His small eyes darted quickly to mine, as though in suspicion. "No," he responded promptly. "It is almost a year to-day since I was in England." Then, noticing Barton waiting with the trap, he ordered him to take the luggage to the house, while all three of us walked up the drive together. A sudden change had passed over Beryl. She knew this man Ashwicke, her attitude towards him was that of fear. The looks they had exchanged at first meeting were sufficient to convince me that there was some hidden secret between them. "Nora cannot be aware of your arrival," Beryl said, as we walked together up the sunny drive to the house. "Otherwise she would either have told me, or she certainly would have remained at home to receive you." "Why should she?" he laughed lightly. "Surely we are old enough friends to put aside all ceremony. I'm a rolling stone, as you know, and I hate putting people out." "Yes," she said; "you are a rolling stone, and no mistake. I don't think any one travels further afield than you do. You seem to be always travelling." "I've only spent six months in England these last eight years," he responded. "To me, England is only bearable in August or September. A little shooting, and I'm off again." "You only come back because you can't get decent sport on the Continent?" I said, for want of other observation to make. "Exactly," he answered. "`_La Chasse_,' as the French call it, is never a success across the Channel. Some rich Frenchman started a fox-hunt down at Montigny, in the Seine and Marne, not long ago, and part of the paraphernalia was an ambulance wagon flying the red-cross flag. A fact! I went to the first meet myself." "The French are no sportsmen," I said. "The same everywhere, all over the Continent. Sport is _chic_, therefore the get-up of sportsmen must be outrageous and striking. No foreigner enjoys it. He shoots or hunts just because it's the correct thing to do. Here in England one kills game for the love of the thing. To the Frenchman in patent leather, sport is only a bore." He had all the irresponsible air of the true cosmopolitan, yet his assertion that he had been absent from England a year was an unmitigated lie. Knowing this, I was doubtful of all his chatter. On entering the hall, Beryl, as mistress of the house in her cousin's absence, rang for the servants and told them to take Mr Ashwicke's baggage to the same room he had occupied last year, sending Barton round to the kennels to find Sir Henry and inform him of the arrival of his guest. In the meantime, Ashwicke had tossed his hat aside, and seated himself cross-legged, in one of the low cane-chairs, making himself thoroughly at home.