“What! back already?” he said beamingly. “I thought you were going to take a few days’ holiday in London. Why didn’t you, eh? Why didn’t you? But we’ll have no work to-day, that’s certain. The best thing you can do will be to have the dog-cart out after luncheon and take your sweetheart for a drive—lucky dog that you are, to have won the love of such a girl!” Then his voice took on a deeper tone. “What a happy chance for me was that which brought you and my son together at Liverpool and so gave Alec back to me weeks before I should otherwise have had him! I cannot help feeling as if I somehow owe it all to you. Well, well”—laying a kindly hand on his shoulder—“when your wedding-day is here you will find that I have not forgotten you.” And with a smile and a nod he passed on. Everard’s most pressing object was to secure a private interview with Mr. John Clare—as he was henceforward to be known to the world, although to his father he would never be anything but Alec. Not till he should have recounted to the latter the history of the ring and put it into his hands, would he go in search of Ethel and surprise her by his unexpected return. Presently he found John alone in the library, hunting up some of the favourite authors of his youth, from whom he felt that he had been too long parted. Sir Gilbert was closeted with one of his tenants in the study. John Clare greeted Everard with a smile and a cordial grip of the hand. The liking he had conceived for him during the few hours they had spent together in Liverpool had not been, in any degree lessened by what he had heard about him since, both from his father and Lady Pell. “I thought you were about to give yourself a holiday,” he said, “and that we need not look to see you at the Chase for some days to come.” He had already had his grizzled beard and heavy moustache carefully trimmed, and certainly he presented a much more civilised appearance than before. “I was able to finish the business which took me to London in much less time than I expected,” replied Everard. “The affair, however, has taken a turn wholly surprising and unexpected—one that seems to bring you, Mr. Clare, into connection with it, although as to the mode in which the connection in question originated I must confess that I am entirely in the dark.” “You excite my curiosity, Lisle. I hope you will not refuse to gratify it.” “Is there any place where we can secure half-an-hour to ourselves without fear of interruption?” “Perhaps we had better go upstairs to my own room. No one will intrude upon us there.” “May I take the liberty of asking whether you have ever seen this ring before?” said Everard as soon as the two were seated opposite each other in John’s dressing-room.