Lulled by the sound of his soft movements behind the near-closed door, my thoughts took dreamy wing, and floated out incontinently into the open. Were my Ira’s speeding to join issue with them above that lovely hawthorn valley mistermed Hags Lane? What flowers should come to blossom there in spring? I believed I could write a poem on the subject, and tinglingly I got out paper and pencil, and sharpened the latter to a point of tenderest wit, and in a little was absorbed in my task. Shame, that lover’s rapture should be “held up” over a rhyme! What was inspiration to these cold laws of prosody? But at last I appropriated one--“tiara”--the Lord forgive me--and then it was easy, comparatively, to fit my crown of blossoms to it. Nevertheless it struck eleven from the little clock on the mantelpiece while I was still fitting it; and at that same instant I became aware of a presence in the room. “A thousand apologies, my dear fellow!” said an unfamiliar voice. “I wouldn’t have interrupted you for the world in such a romantic task, if I had known.” I sat for a minute quite rigid and motionless. It never occurred to me that here, perhaps, was the best testimony I could have wished to the effectiveness of my own secret dealings. It seemed only an impossible piece of insolence that could have brought this man to seek my company, and at such a moment. But I did not reveal myself. A long habit of self-repression came to my aid. “Mr Dalston?” I said at last. He nodded brightly. “We have met before. I hope we shall meet again--and on terms of a better understanding.” I rose to my feet, at least perfectly cool in seeming. “Meaning--what?” I asked. “Nothing cryptic, of course,” said he. He glanced about the room. His manner was very alert and vivacious. His teeth and glittering eyes seemed, when he turned his face again, to take possession of me. “The tragedy of that first meeting,” he said, “put any pleasant understanding between us two at the time out of the question, didn’t it?” “You use an odd word, Mr Dalston,” I said; “and take an odd way--you will excuse me--for a stranger.” “Why, as to that,” he answered, smiling, “I found the door open, and took what I supposed to be the proper woodland way with hermits. Men of your principles love secrecy, don’t they? and quiet comings and goings, and visits unawares? I only borrowed a leaf out of your book, you see.” Now, though he was so gay and debonair, I recognised on the instant some sinister meaning behind his words, and knew that he was aware, in some measure at least, of the watchful part I had been playing, and knew, moreover, that he wanted me to know that he knew. I could not guess his purpose, beyond the fact that it appeared to imply some menace and a warning; but I could be as cool as he, and his equal, as I thought, in cunning. “You referred to an understanding between us,” I said rather drawlingly. “Well, I can only repeat that it seems to me an odd word to use.”