"Three," said the stranger, "and six of the Sylva Sylvarum, and Argalus and Perthenia--do you know that--Quarles--and--" Next moment the two men were up to the eyes in a flood of names, none of which conveyed anything to her. But she saw that Edward was happy. At the same time, the hour was latish. She waited for the first pause--a very little one--but she drove the point of her wedge into it sharply. "Wouldn't it be nice if you were to come back to dinner with us, at Warwick, then we should have lots of time to talk." "I was going to London to-night," said the stranger, "but if Warwick can find me a night's lodging I shall only too gladly avail myself of your gracious invitation, Mrs.--" "Basingstoke," said Edward. The stranger had produced a card and she read on it: DR. C. P. VANDERVELDE, Ohio College, U. S. A. "Yes," he said, "I'm an American. I think almost all serious Baconians are. I hope you haven't a prejudice against my country, Mrs. Basingstoke--" "It's Miss Basingstoke," she said, thinking of the hotel, "and I've never met an American that I didn't like." He made her a ceremonious and old-fashioned bow. "Inscrutable are the ways of fate," he said. "Only this morning I was angry because the chambermaid at my inn in Birmingham destroyed my rubbing of the grave inscription, and I had to come to Stratford to get another. Yes, I could have written, but it was so near, and I shall soon be chained to an office desk--and now, in this of all spots, I meet youth and beauty and sympathy and hospitality. It is an omen." "And what," she asked, as they paced down the church, "was the cipher that said there was nothing in the tomb? Or would you rather not talk about your ciphers?" "I desire nothing better than to talk of them," he answered. "It's the greatest mistake to keep these things secret. We ought all to tell all we know--and if we all did that and put together the little fragment of knowledge we have gathered, we should soon piece together the whole puzzle. The first words I found on the subject are, 'Reader, read all, no corpse lies in this tomb,' and so on, and with the same letters another anagram in Latin, beginning '_Lector intra sepulcho jacet nullum cadaver_.' I'll show you how I got it when we're within reach of a table and light." They lingered a moment on the churchyard terrace where the willows overhang the Avon and the swans move up and down like white-sailed ships. "How hospitable we're getting," she said to Edward that night when their guest had gone to his humbler inn--"two visitors in one day!" "Katherine," he said, just for the pleasure of saying it, for they two were alone, so he could not have been speaking to any one else--"Katherine, that man's ciphers are wonderful. And what a gift of the gods--to possess an interest that can never fail and that costs nothing for its indulgence, not like postage-stamps or orchids or politics or racing!"