And behold! Far away out of the wooded slopes across the valley, but in the clearness of the sunset distinct and unmistakable, he saw a little spire of smoke. At that his expression of serene resignation changed to an amazed anger. Smoke? He turned the head of the white horse about, and hesitated. And as he did so a little rustle of air went through the grass about him. Far away upon some reeds swayed a tattered sheet of grey. He looked at the cobwebs; he looked at the smoke. “Perhaps, after all, it is not them,” he said at last. But he knew better. After he had stared at the smoke for some time, he mounted the white horse. As he rode, he picked his way amidst stranded masses of web. For some reason there were many dead spiders on the ground, and those that lived feasted guiltily on their fellows. At the sound of his horse's hoofs they fled. Their time had passed. From the ground without either a wind to carry them or a winding sheet ready, these things, for all their poison, could do him little evil. He flicked with his belt at those he fancied came too near. Once, where a number ran together over a bare place, he was minded to dismount and trample them with his boots, but this impulse he overcame. Ever and again he turned in his saddle, and looked back at the smoke. “Spiders,” he muttered over and over again. “Spiders! Well, well.... The next time I must spin a web.” 4. THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder I can see him. And if I catch his eye--and usually I catch his eye--it meets me with an expression. It is mainly an imploring look--and yet with suspicion in it. Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told long ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his ease. As if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who would believe me if I did tell? Poor old Pyecraft! Great, uneasy jelly of substance! The fattest clubman in London. He sits at one of the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire, stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance judiciously and catch him biting at a round of hot buttered tea-cake, with his eyes on me. Confound him!--with his eyes on me! That settles it, Pyecraft! Since you WILL be abject, since you WILL behave as though I was not a man of honour, here, right under your embedded eyes, I write the thing down--the plain truth about Pyecraft. The man I helped, the man I shielded, and who has requited me by making my club unendurable, absolutely unendurable, with his liquid appeal, with the perpetual “don't tell” of his looks. And, besides, why does he keep on eternally eating? Well, here goes for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!