The present Earl of Chelford, who, by the way, is engaged to be married to Miss Leslie Gwyn, the only sister of Mr. Arthur Gwyn, the well-known solicitor, informed our local representative that he had no doubt that the apparition of the Black Abbot was a practical joke in very doubtful taste on the part of the foolish youth of the neighbourhood. He made as though to tear the paper but thought better of it and put the cutting under a paper weight. That reference to the practical jokers of the village was reassuring and might be a comfort when the night came and he needed encouragement. For Lord Chelford believed in the Black Abbot as religiously as he proclaimed his scepticism. His restless hand moved to the bell-push on his table. “Has Mr. Richard returned?” “No, m’lord.” Lord Chelford struck the table pettishly with his palm. “Where on earth does he get to in the mornings?” he asked querulously. Thomas, very wisely, pretended not to hear. II The reapers had laid low the last of the golden heads, and the sheaves stood like yellow tombstones on Racket Field. Beyond the field was Chelfordbury, where the gray old spire of the church came up from a velvety knoll of trees; beyond again, the green and white downs of Sussex, along the foot of which the railway runs. Dick Alford sat on a stile on the top of a little hillock and could see across the weald for fifteen miles. He could turn his head and take in the home farm and the green roofs and cupolas of Fossaway Manor, with its broad lawns and its clipped yew hedges. Neither cornfield nor down, manor house nor pleasaunce, interested him for the moment. His eyes were fixed and his mind centred upon the girl who was walking quickly up the winding path that would bring her presently to where he sat. She was singing as she walked, the riding crop she carried whirling round and round like a drum major’s baton. His lips twitched to the ghost of a smile. Presently she would see him, and he wondered if she would be annoyed. He had never seen Leslie Gwyn except in such circumstances that her face was a pleasant mask and her manner conventionally charming. She had been nicely brought up and taught that all things are permissible except one: to make one’s equal feel foolish. The song ceased. She had seen him, but she did not check her pace and came quickly up the hill path, slashing at a nettle bush as she walked. “Peeping Tom!” she greeted him reproachfully. She was not so tall as the average English girl, but her slimness gave her height, and the supple movement of her hinted at greater strength than her slight figure suggested. Her face, delicately modelled, had the subtle refinement of her class. Small, beautiful hands and feet, a head finely poised, eyes of a deep gray, and a red mouth that smiled easily, Leslie Gwyn in rags would have been unmistakably a beautiful lady.