“I’m Redfern Number Two,” he thought. “There’s no getting over that .”

The path he followed soon emerged into the back-premises of a small dairy-barton; and these in their turn opened out into one of the outlying streets of the town.

“Redfern must have been an idiot,” he thought, as he made his way towards Preston Lane, “to contemplate drowning himself over Urquhart’s manias. King’s Barton isn’t everything. King’s Barton isn’t a shut-off world, like that deserted path!”

He looked at his watch as he approached the door of his house. Just five o’clock! “Will she have got rid of him? Will she be away and the place empty? She knew I was coming back to tea. It will be the first time she’s ever done it, if she is away.”

As he fumbled with the latch of the gate, he found that once more he was associating Gerda and Christie together.