"I'd better leave my things," I said, returning to the subject which was of chief importance to me. You take me to that inn at Hurley. If I arrive in a motor, they'll take me in all right, even though I haven't any luggage. I'll invent some story as we go." "They'd take you _in_," Banks replied thoughtfully. "'Tisn't hardly more than a public house, really." I thought that some strain of the gentleman's servant in him was concerned with the question of the entertainment proper to my station. "It's only for one night," I remarked. "Oh! yes," he said, obviously thinking of something else. "Too far for you to go?" I asked. He glanced at his wrist watch. "Quarter past five," he said. "It'd take me the best part of two hours to get there and back--the road's none too good." "You don't want to go?" I said. "Well, no, honestly I don't," he replied. "The fact is I want to see Mr. Jervaise again." He smiled as he added, "My little affair isn't settled yet by a good bit, you see." I sheered away from that topic; chiefly, I think, because I wanted to avoid any suggestion of pumping him. When you have recently been branded as a spy, you go about for the next few days trying not to feel like one. "Isn't there any place in the village I could go to?" I asked. He shook his head. "There's one pub--a sort of beerhouse--but they don't take people in," he said. "No lodgings?" I persisted. "The Jervaises don't encourage that sort of thing," he replied. "Afraid of the place getting frippery. I've heard them talking about it in the car. And as they own every blessed cottage in the place...." He left the deduction to my imagination, and continued with the least touch of bashfulness, "You wouldn't care to come to us, I suppose?" "To the Home Farm?" I replied stupidly. I was absurdly embarrassed. If I had not chanced to see that grouping in the wood before lunch, I should have jumped at the offer. But I knew that it must have been Miss Banks who had seen me--spying. Jervaise had had his back to me. And she would probably, I thought, take his view of the confounded accident. She would be as anxious to avoid me as I was to avoid her. Coming so unexpectedly, this invitation to the Farm appeared to me as a perfectly impossible suggestion. Banks, naturally, misinterpreted my embarrassment. "I suppose it would put you in the wrong, as it were--up at the Hall," he said. "Coming to us after that row, I mean, 'd look as if what they'd been saying was all true." "I don't care a hang about _that_," I said earnestly. In my relief at being able to speak candidly I forgot that I was committing myself to an explanation; and Banks inevitably wandered into still more shameful misconceptions of my implied refusal. "Only a farm, of course..." he began. "Oh! my dear chap," I interposed quickly. "Do believe me, I'd far sooner stay at the Home Farm than at Jervaise Hall." He looked at me with rather a blank stare of inquiry. "Well, then?" was all he found to say.