“He was good to Lady Naselton’s son abroad,” I answered. “He is very rich, they say.” “Ay, ay!” My father nodded his head slowly. His manner was becoming more natural. Yet there was a look of deadly earnest in his white, set face. To look at him made me almost shudder. Something in his expression was like a premonition of the tragedy to come. “We shall meet soon, then,” he said, thoughtfully. “It may be to-morrow. It may be to-day. Kate, your eyes are younger than mine. Is that a man coming along the road there?--down in the hollow on the other side of the turn. Do you see?” I stood up by his side. There was a figure in sight, but as yet a long way off. “It is a man,” I said. “He is coming towards us.” We stood there side by side for several minutes. My father was leaning upon my shoulder. The clutch of his fingers seemed to burn their way through my dress into my flesh. It was as though they were tipped with fire. He did not move or speak. He kept his eyes steadfastly fixed upon the bend of the road. Suddenly a slight change flashed into his face. He leaned forward; his upper lip quivered; he shaded his eyes with his hand. I followed his rapt gaze, and in the middle of the dusty white road I could see the man now. Well within sight, I watched him draw nearer and nearer. His carriage was buoyant and un-English, and he carried a cane, with which he snapped off the heads of the thistles growing by the hedge-side. He seemed to be whistling softly to himself, showing all the while those rows of white, glistening teeth unpleasantly prominent against the yellowish tinge of his cheeks. From the first I had scarcely doubted that this was the man of whom we had been talking. The coincidence of his coming never even struck me. It seemed at the time to be a perfectly natural thing. He came to within a yard or two of us before he appeared to recognize me. Then he took off his hat and made me a sweeping bow. In the middle of it he encountered my father’s steady gaze. His hat slipped from his fingers--he stood like a man turned to stone. His black eyes were full of horror; he looked at my father as a man would look at one risen from the dead. And my father returned his gaze with a faint, curious smile parting his thin lips. “Welcome to England once more, Stephen,” my father said, grimly. “You were about to address my daughter. Have you lost your way?” The man opened his lips twice before he spoke. I could almost fancy that his teeth were chattering. His voice was very low and husky. “I was going to ask the way to Deville Court,” he said. All the time his eyes never left my father’s face. For some reason or other they were full of wonder; my father’s presence seemed to terrify him. “The way to Deville Court?” my father repeated. “I am returning in that direction. I will show it to you myself. There are several turns before you get on to the straight road.”