“Emma does cook well!” he said at last, as he rose to go. “It’s all right, Miss Gault, dear. You needn’t look so anxious. I’ve got a head of iron.” And immediately, as if to prove he had such a head, he felt it to be incumbent upon him to say something affectionate and tender. “I believe,” he burst out, “I must have just the same sort of feeling for you that he had!”

These were his parting words; but it was not until he was sitting in a third-class smoking-carriage of the Southwestern train that he began to wonder why it was that Miss Gault’s face had such a wry smile upon it as he shook hands with her at her door.

He was alone in the carriage, and, windy though it was, he kept the window open and sat facing the engine. The rush of air sobered him, and he observed with interest the scattered lights of King’s Barton as the train jolted along its high embankment between that village and the Evershot meadows. He wondered humorously to himself what Jason would say that evening when he learnt of the new invasion of his privacy.