"Charming old place you have here!--charming!" drawled his lordship. "Perfect dream! Love to pass all my days in such a delightful spot! 'Pon my life! Awful luck for us, the motor breaking down, or we never should have stopped at such a jolly place, don't-cher-know. Should we, Brookfield?" Brookfield, gently scratching a pimple on his fat, clean-shaven face, smiled knowingly. "_Couldn't_ have stopped!" he declared. "We were doing a record run. But we should have missed a great deal,--a great deal!" And he emitted a soft chuckle. "Not only the place,--but----!" He waved his hand explanatorily, with a slight bow, which implied an unspoken compliment to the looks of the mistress of the inn and her family. One of the young women blushed and peeped slyly up at him. He returned the glance with interest. "May I ask," pursued Lord Wrotham, with an amicable leer, "the names of your two daughters, Madam? They've been awfully kind to us broken-down-travellers--should just like to know the difference between them. Like two roses on one stalk, don't-cher-know! Can't tell which is which!" The mother of the girls hesitated a moment. She was not quite sure that she liked the "tone" of his lordship's speech. Finally she replied somewhat stiffly:-- "My eldest daughter is named Elizabeth, my lord, and her sister is Grace." "Elizabeth and Grace! Charming!" murmured Wrotham, leaning a little more confidentially over the counter--"Now which--which is Grace?" At that moment a tall, shadowy form darkened the open doorway of the inn, and a man entered, carrying in his arms a small oblong bundle covered with a piece of rough horse-cloth. Placing his burden down on a vacant bench, he pushed his cap from his brows and stared wildly about him. Every one looked at him,--some with recognition, others in alarm,--and Helmsley, compelled as he was to keep himself out of the general notice in his corner, almost started to his feet with an involuntary cry of amazement. For it was Tom o' the Gleam. CHAPTER X Tom o' the Gleam,--Tom, with his clothes torn and covered with dust,--Tom, changed suddenly to a haggard and terrible unlikeness of himself, his face drawn and withered, its healthy bronze colour whitened to a sickly livid hue,--Tom, with such an expression of dazed and stupid horror in his eyes as to give the impression that he was heavily in drink, and dangerous. "Well, mates!" he said thickly--"A fine night and a clear moon!" No one answered him. He staggered up to the bar. The hostess looked at him severely. "Now, Tom, what's the matter?" she said. He straightened himself, and, throwing back his shoulders as though parrying a blow, forced a smile. "Nothing! A touch of the sun!" A strong shudder ran through his limbs, and his teeth chattered,--then suddenly leaning forward on the counter, he whispered: "I'm not drunk, mother!--for God's sake don't think it!--I'm ill. Don't you see I'm ill?--I'll be all right in a minute,--give me a drop of brandy!"