He opened the rustic gate of the hillside churchyard and led the way to a newly-turned mound, where the perfume hung stagnantly from the rain-lashed petals of a great sheaf of Bermuda lilies. "I remain here," he said quietly, after a few minutes' silence by the grave-side. "Your road lies straight on, along the field path. You can even see the smoke of Thornley from here, lying to your right." Salt did not reply. Looking intently in the opposite direction, he was locating with a seaman's eye another cloud of smoke that rose above the tree-tops in the valley they had left. "Your house!" he exclaimed, pointing. "Man!" he cried suddenly, with a flash of intuition, "what are you doing? You fired the straw before we left!" A sharp report was the only answer. Salt turned too late to arrest his arm, only in time to catch him as he fell. He lowered him--there was nothing else to do--lowered him on to the wet sods that flanked the mound, and knelt by his side so that he might support him somewhat. To one who had been on battle-fields there was no need to wonder what to do. It was a matter not of minutes but of seconds. The mute eyes met his dimly; he heard the single whisper, "Hilda," and then, without a tremor, Garnet, self-murdered, pressed a little more heavily against his arm and lay across the yet unfinished grave of his State-murdered wife. CHAPTER VIII TANTROY EARNS HIS WAGE "I think," observed Salt reflectively, soon after his return, "that you had better take a short holiday now, Miss Lisle." Miss Lisle looked up from her work--she was not addressing circulars, it may be stated--with an expression not quite devoid of suspicion. "I will, if you wish me to do so, sir," she replied meekly. "But, personally, I do not require one." "You have been of great use to us while I was away," he explained kindly, but with official precision, "and now that I am back again you have the opportunity." Miss Lisle coloured rather rapturously at the formal praise, but the astute young woman did not allow her exaltation to beguile her senses. "A week's holiday?" she asked. "I would suggest a fortnight," he replied. "That would be until the end of June?" Salt agreed. "Then nothing is likely to happen before the end of June?" He laughed frankly. There was no trace of the mystery and restraint, of the electric tension in the air, that forerun portentous events, as we are told, to be noticed about the office of the League. "A great deal may happen before that time, but nothing, I think I can assure you, that comes within your meaning." "Is there any particular place that you would like me to go to?" "Oh, not at all. Forget Trafalgar Chambers and business entirely for the time." Possibly Miss Lisle had looked for some hidden meaning behind the simple suggestion of a holiday: had anticipated "another secret process down another little lane." At any rate, she did not rejoice at the prospect; on the contrary, she declined it.