I felt greatly preoccupied as the train sped down to Berkshire—anxious, too, about many things, not the least of these being how I should be received. Would Sir Roland have returned? Would Aunt Hannah have told him everything? If so would he have adopted her view with regard to the sending of that telegram, and with regard to other matters? And Dulcie, would she at last have come to think as Aunt Hannah thought? I could not believe she would have, but still— As I have said, women are so extraordinary, that there is no knowing what they may not do, no accounting for what they may do. Knowing there would be no conveyance obtainable at Holt Stacey, I had decided to go on to Newbury. On our alighting at Newbury I suddenly heard Dick's shrill voice calling: "Why, Mike, there's father!" Sir Roland had just got out of a compartment further up the train, and soon we were in conversation. He too had come from London, but whereas Dick and I had only just caught the train, Sir Roland had, he said, entered it as soon as it came into the station, which accounted for our not having seen him at Paddington. As we walked along the Newbury platform I explained to him very briefly the reason I had come down, and how it was I had Dick with me, inwardly congratulating myself upon my good fortune in thus meeting Sir Roland and so being able to explain everything to him concerning what had happened that day, before he should meet his sister and hear what she would tell him. "It was only at the last moment I decided to come by this train," Sir Roland said as he entered the taxi that a porter had hailed, and I followed him, while Dick hopped in after us. "How tiresome it is one can't get a conveyance at Holt Stacey; people are for ever complaining to me about it. As I have not telegraphed for the car to meet me I had to come on to Newbury." "I came to Newbury for the same reason," I said; and then, as the taxi rolled swiftly along the dark lanes, for we had a twelve miles' run before us, I gave Sir Roland a detailed account of all that had happened that day, from the time Easterton had rung me up at my flat to tell me of Jack Osborne's disappearance and to ask me to come to him at once, down to the sudden and unexpected arrival of Dick at Jack's rooms at the Russell Hotel. Sir Roland was astounded, and a good deal perturbed. Several times during the course of my narrative he had interrupted in order to put some question or other to Dick. At first he had reproved him for going to London on what Dick called "his own"; but when I told him more he admitted that what the boy had done he had done probably for the best. "Oh, I haven't told you one thing," Dick suddenly interrupted. "Well, what?" Sir Roland asked.