The station-master was affable enough, gave him some bread and meat and a glass of milk, and refused any payment. When the train came in, David, sourly smiling, saw the constable loll onto the platform. He could not resist the temptation to lean out of the carriage window. "Good-by, P. C. 198," he said. Now, he was traveling first-class, and, in England, even a villain demands respect under that circumstance. "Good-by, sir," said the man, surprised. "You will know me again, eh?" "Oh yes, sir." "I am glad of that. Tell that chap at the gate of Dale Manor that I shall keep my fixture with him soon." P. C. 198 scratched his head. "Funny affair," he muttered as the train moved off. "Looks an' talks more of a gentleman than van Wot's-his-name, any day." At the next station, four miles away, David slipped out of his carriage quickly and waited in a shed until the train had gone again. Then he interviewed the station-master, and somewhat astonished the official by tendering a return ticket from Rigsworth to London. "Can't break your journey," said the regulations. "But I've done it," said David. "It's irregular," complained the other. "And the train is half a mile distant." "Well, if you pay the fare--" David meant to forfeit his ticket. This was a new light. He paid a few pence, took a receipt, and promised himself some fun at Rigsworth. He asked for no information. From the train he had noted a line of telegraph posts in the distance, and he stepped out smartly along a by-road until he gained the main thoroughfare. Then, being alone, he ran, and the newly bought gloves burst their seams, so he flung them off. When less than a mile from Rigsworth he heard the whistle of a train. Springing to a high bank, he made out the sinuous, snake-like curling of an engine and coaches beyond the hedge-rows--a train coming from London. "Van Hupfeldt is in it, of course," he decided. "I must make sure." It needed a fine sprint, aided by the exercise of quick judgment when he neared Dale Manor; but he was hidden in a brake of brambles in the park as Van Hupfeldt, exceedingly pallid this glorious day of spring, walked up the drive, accompanied by the gamekeeper, dog and gun. The dog came near to undoing David; but a rabbit, already disturbed, ran out of the thicket, and a sharp command from the keeper brought the retriever to heel. Van Hupfeldt entered the gardens; the keeper made off across the park. Green and brown buds, almost bursting into leaf, were already enriching the shrubs and trees of Dale Manor, especially in a sheltered hollow on the left front of the house where nestled a pretty lake. There the cover was good. The hunter instinct sent him that way.