Barclay left the house with the precious letter in his pocket; he had come out that afternoon, with no intention of going anywhere near Fullarton. On reaching his own front-door he banged it so heartily with the knocker that his maidservant felt her heart thump too. She came running to answer the summons. ‘Order round the chaise immediately,’ he cried, ‘and see that the fire is kept in till I come back!’ As he stood at the door, waiting for his conveyance to be brought, he saw the strange one belonging to Captain Somerville enter the street on its homeward way. He ran to the gate which opened on the yard behind his house. ‘Be quick, can’t you!’ he roared to the man harnessing the horse. What he feared he knew not, but the sight of the Inspector’s plaided body sitting under the retrograde hood of his carriage, like an owl in a hollow tree, made him long to be clear of the town. CHAPTER XXVI ALEXANDER BARCLAY DOES HIS BEST THOUGH Barclay had no intention of allowing the letter he carried to reach its final destination, he could not venture to stop its course till it had passed Fullarton’s hands. He was too much afraid that Somerville and Fullarton might meet within the next few days. The mail office should be responsible for its loss, if that loss were ever discovered; a contingency which he doubted strongly. He found it exceedingly annoying to be obliged to take this farcical drive on such a chilly afternoon, but Prudence demanded the sacrifice and he humoured her, like a wise man. Fordyce’s obligations to him were becoming colossal. He found Fullarton in his library and explained that he was on his way home. He had looked in in passing, he said, to ask him to address a letter which Captain Somerville had given him for Miss Raeburn. He was rather hurried, and would not send his carriage to the stables; if the letter were directed at once, he would take it with him and leave it at the mail office, should it still be open. Robert was not in the humour either for gossip or business and he was glad to be rid of Barclay so easily. He took up his pen at once. In five minutes the lawyer was on his return road to Kaims. The mail office was closed, as he knew it would be at that time in the evening, and he brought his prize home; to-morrow, though he would take several letters there in person, it would not be among their number. In its place would be one addressed by himself to the bride-elect and containing a formal congratulation on her marriage. Should inquiry arise, it would be found that he had despatched a letter bearing her name on that day. It was best that the track should lose itself on the further side of the mail office; the rest was in the hands of Providence. It was a badly-patched business, but it was the neatest work he could put together at such short notice.