All the morning he spent riding about his ragged estate, exploring, investigating, calculating possibilities and planning improvements. It was past mid-day when he turned his horse’s head homewards, and then he was by a dense thicket that skirted a little long wood of lofty trees. Here he dismounted; for it struck him that this was the fringe of the very holt he had penetrated on his first coming, and he must put his conjecture to the test. He tied up his horse and plunged amongst the branches, and presently was rewarded by catching a glimpse through the thronging trunks of the mossy lap of the drive and the dank stones of the ruined lodge. Right opposite the latter, but well hidden in the brush, he sat himself down upon a tumbled log; for he was hot and weary, and the high green silence of the place smote upon his senses like a cathedral anthem. Far away the tap of a woodpecker rang like an elfin hammer; things unseen pattered from a height upon the dead leaves--mere accents on solitude; the “caw” of a sailing rook came through the leafy canopy overhead with a weight of drowsy utterance. He closed his eyes blissfully--and opened them again with a start. Something soft-footed had entered the drive by way of the iron gate--had paused, and was peering forward with a concentrated gaze. He made this out--cautiously shifting his body for the better view--to be a tall, dark-featured woman--a gipsy-like creature by every token--keen-faced; very poorly dressed. Presently she moved secretly, a yard at a time, in skirmishing advances, as a mouse does. Suddenly she gave a little run; stopped; drew her ragged shawl tightly about her bosom, and uttered a low exclamation of greeting. To whom? It was with a curious wonder that the watcher saw coming from the other direction his man Whimple. He, the latter, moved as the woman, with a like air of secrecy; and he had a scared look in his face, too, as if he were on some errand of a disturbing privacy. The two met, with a hasty familiarity of welcome, and words passed between them. These were earnest, rapid, vehement; but Mr. Tuke could not gather their import. More than once the woman’s voice wavered up for an instant into a tone of scorn and indignation, which was as quickly subdued. Then, in a moment, something had passed from the man to the stranger--something, wrapped in an old chequered handkerchief, that she received delicately and hid under her shawl,--and they had parted, and the woman had gone to the gate with a sound of sobbing. “Mr. Whimple, Mr. Whimple,” thought Mr. Whimple’s master--“if there was only a little more brass in your hang-dog face, I could respect, if I didn’t encourage, your tactics.” He saw the fellow turn and scurry away as he had come, and gave an indrawn whistle deflected at the stop, as men do who vent upon themselves an emotion of surprise.