"I don't know that I am glad, poor soul," said Lister sadly. "The police are on her track. I didn't want to tell you, Bella, but for the last two days the papers have been full of the hunt after Mrs. Vand." "Why didn't Dora tell me?" "I asked her not to. You have had quite enough to bear." "Well, now that you have told me some, tell me all." "There isn't much to tell. Some too clever landlady in Bloomsbury suspected a quiet lady lodger. It certainly was Mrs. Vand, but she became suspicious of her landlady and cleared out. Then she was seen at Putney, and afterwards someone noticed her in Hampstead. The papers having been taunting the police about the matter, they'll catch her in the end." "Poor Mrs. Vand! poor Mrs. Vand!" The girl's eyes again filled with tears. "We can't help her, Bella. I wish Timson could get hold of her and induce her to stand her trial. I don't think either judge or jury would be hard on her; more, I fancy that her brain must be turned with all this misery." "And she has lost her husband, too," sighed Bella; "she loved him so. Oh, dear Cyril, what should I do if I lost you?" Before Lister could reply with the usual lover-like attentions there was a noise in the road, and looking through the window they saw many people hurrying along. Dora came in at the moment from the other room, whither she always discreetly withdrew when not nursing Pence. "It is only some policeman they are running after. He declares that Mrs. Vand is in the neighbourhood. If she is I hope she will escape." "By Jove! I must go out and see," said Cyril, seizing his hat. "I shall come also," cried Bella, and in a few minutes the two were on the road. But by this time the people were not tearing along as they had been, and one villager told Lister that it had been a false alarm. "The old vixen won't come back to her first hole," said the villager with a coarse laugh, and Bella frowned at him for his inhumanity. As there really was nothing to hurry for the lovers strolled easily along the road talking of their future. "Bella, you haven't many boxes?" asked Cyril. "Only two. Why do you ask?" "Will you be ready to come with me to London to-morrow?" "Yes; I shall be glad to get out of Marshely, where I have been so miserable. Only I wish I knew where Mrs. Vand is, poor soul." Cyril passed over the reference to Mrs. Vand, as he was weary of discussing that unfortunate woman. "There's a chum of mine got a motor," said the young man. "I wrote and asked him for the loan of it. He brought it down last night, and it is safely bestowed in the stables of 'The Chequers.' To-morrow at nine o'clock let us start off with your boxes----" "And Dora?"