He turned round quickly and left the room. Mrs. Tropenell did not see her son again till late that night, and then not alone, for Laura spent the evening at Freshley, and after he had taken their guest home to The Chase, he did not come in again for hours. Old Mr. Privet, Godfrey Pavely's confidential clerk, had been rather taken aback when he had learnt over the telephone, from Mrs. Pavely, that he was to have Mr. Oliver Tropenell as his travelling companion to London. But very soon, being a truly religious man, he came to see how well and wisely everything had been ordered. To begin with, Mr. Tropenell called for him at the Bank, thus saving him a very cold, easterly-wind kind of walk to Pewsbury station, which was some way from the town. And once there, Mr. Tropenell had taken two first-class return tickets--that again being the action of a true gentleman, for he, Mr. Privet, would have been quite content to go by himself third-class. Also, as it turned out, during the long journey to London they had some very pleasant and instructive conversation together. Quite at first, in answer to a query as to what he thought of this extraordinary business of Mr. Pavely's disappearance, Mr. Oliver Tropenell had been perhaps a little short. He had replied that no one could possibly venture an opinion as to what had happened. But then had followed between them, in spite of the fact that the noise of the train was very trying, a most agreeable chat over old times--over those days when Mr. Godfrey Pavely's father, a fine type of the old country-town banker, was still alive. Mr. Privet, as a younger man, had had a good deal to do with the final sale and purchase of The Chase, and Mr. Tropenell, as was very natural in one whose own ancestors had lived there for hundreds of years, had shown the greatest interest in that old story. Mr. Tropenell had not been in the least over-curious or indiscreet, but Mr. Privet had been led on to talk of his companion's grandfather, a gentleman who, if rather wild, and certainly extravagant and headstrong, had been such a grand sportsman--quite a hero among the young men of Pewsbury! What had brought about the poor gentleman's undoing had been his taking over the hounds, when Lord St. Amant's great-uncle had given them up. So pleasant had been that conversation in the first-class carriage shared by them, that for the first time since Thursday Mr. Privet had almost forgotten the business on which they two were going to London! But he had soon remembered it again--for at the station Mr. Oliver Tropenell had suggested that, instead of going to the Hungerford Hotel, he, Mr. Privet, should accompany him to Lord St. Amant's club, in order to get a letter of introduction from that nobleman to the Commissioner of Police.