“Does he, though?”

“Yes; he came after me to the station to-day.  He had a cravat round his mouth and an ulster, but I could see that it was he.  I took a ticket for Colchester.  He took one also, and made for the Colchester train.  I gave him the slip, got the right ticket, and came on.  I’ve no doubt he is at Colchester at this moment.”

“Remember, my boy,” the merchant said, as they turned from the door, “this is the last of our trials.  If we succeed in this, all is well for the future.”

“We have tried diamonds, and we have tried marriage.  The third time is the charm,” said Ezra, as he threw away his cigar and followed his father.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE INCIDENT OF THE CORRIDOR.

Ezra Girdlestone hardly went through the formality of greeting Kate next morning when she came down to breakfast.  He was evidently ill at ease, and turned away his eyes when she looked at him, though he glanced at her furtively from time to time.  His father chatted with him upon City matters, but the young man’s answers were brusque and monosyllabic.  His sleep had been troubled and broken, for the conversation of the night before had obtruded unpleasantly on his dreams.

Kate slipped away from them as soon as she could and, putting on her bonnet, went for a long walk through the grounds, partly for the sake of exercise, and partly in the hope of finding some egress.  The one-eyed gate-keeper was at his post, and set up a hideous shout of laughter when he saw her; so she branched off among the trees to avoid him, and walked once more very carefully round the boundary wall.  It was no easy matter to follow it continuously, for the briars and brambles grew in a confused tangle up to its very base.  By perseverance, however, she succeeded in tracing every foot of it, and so satisfying herself finally that there was no diminution anywhere in its height, no break in its continuity, save the one small wooden door which was securely fastened.

There was one spot, however, where a gleam of hope presented itself.  At an angle of the wall there stood a deserted wooden shed, which had been used for the protection of gardeners’ tools in the days when the grounds had been kept in better order.  It was not buttressed up against the wall, but stood some eight or ten feet from it.  Beside the shed was an empty barrel which had once been a water-butt.  The girl managed to climb to the top of the barrel, and from this she was easily able to gain the sloping roof of the shed.  Up this she clambered until she stood upon the summit, a considerable height above the ground.  From it she was able to look down over the wall on to the country-road and the railway line which lay on the other side of it.  True that an impassable chasm lay between her and the wall, but it would be surely possible for her to hail passers-by from here, and to persuade some of them to carry a letter to Bedsworth or to bring paper from there.  Fresh hope gushed into her heart at the thought.