"'Just suppose that, my dear,' continued Robert, 'and that the letter were now before us--would you stand by it? Remember, he must have much to explain. Would you be guided by me, my girl?' "She was trembling with expectation, hope. But she tried to think of the matter, to remember her lover's flight, the lack of word or message for her, and her misery. She nodded, and held out her hand, for she could not speak. "He drew a letter from his pocket. 'You will let me see it?' he said suspiciously. "'Oh yes!' she cried, and fled with it to the window. He watched her while she tore it open and read first one page and then another--there were but two, it was very short. He watched her while she thrust it from her and looked at it as a whole, then drew it to her and kissed it again and again. "'Wait a bit! wait a bit!' cried he, testily. 'Now let me see it.' "She turned upon him, holding it away behind her, as if it were some living thing he might hurt. 'He thought he would meet me at the junction,' she stammered between laughing and crying. 'He was going to London to see his sister--that she might take me in. And he will be here to fetch me this evening. There! Take it!' and suddenly remembering herself she stretched out her hand and gave him the letter. "'You said you would be led by me, you know,' said the old man gravely. "'I will not!' she cried impetuously. 'Never!' "'You promised,' he said. "'I don't care! I don't care!' she replied, clasping her hands. 'No one shall come between us.' "'Very well,' said Robert Evans, 'then I will not be speaking for nothing! But you had better tell Owen to take the trap to the station to meet your man.'" THE VICAR'S SECRET THE VICAR'S SECRET The windows at the rear of Acton Chase, an old house in Worcestershire, look on a quaint bowling-green flanked by yew hedges, and backed by a stream of good size, on the farther side of which a sparsely timbered slope leads up to the home farm. It leads also to half a dozen smaller farms, which once formed the Chase. Zigzag up this slope runs a track--probably it has so run for centuries, for at the foot of it is a ford--which in spring is almost invisible, but in autumn is brown and rutty. The Chase has long been a Roman Catholic house, and up this track dead-and-gone squires, debarred from converse with their neighbours, have ridden a-hunting, mornings innumerable; so that to-day people sitting in the garden towards evening are apt to see them come trailing home, their horses jaded, and themselves calling for the black-jack.