Just as he turned into the road he came face to face with Atkins, Heath’s bungalow companion, and he pulled up short.

“I’ve been trying to call on the Padre,” he said, carelessly, “but he was out.”

“Out,” said Atkins, in a tone of surprise.  “Why, that is odd.  He told me he was due at a meeting at half-past five, and that he wasn’t going out until then.  I suppose he changed his mind.”

“It looks like it,” said Hartley, dryly.

“He hasn’t been well these last few days,” went on Atkins, quickly, “said he felt the weather, and he certainly seems ill.  I don’t believe the poor devil sleeps at all.  Whenever I wake, I can see his light in the passage.”

“That is bad,” Hartley’s voice grew sympathetic.  “Has he been long like this?”

“Not long,” said Atkins, who was constitutionally accurate.  “I think it began about the night after the thunder-storm, but I can’t say for certain.”

“Well, I won’t keep you.”  Hartley touched the pony’s quarters with his whip.  “I’m sorry I missed Heath, as I wanted to see him about something rather important.”

“I’ll tell him,” said Atkins, cheerfully, “and probably he’ll look you up at your own house.”

“Will he, I wonder?” thought the police officer, and he set to work upon the treadmill of his thoughts again.

There is nothing in the world so tantalizing, and so hard to bear, as the conviction that knowledge is just within reach and that it is deliberately withheld.  Heath stood between him and elucidation, and the more firmly the clergyman held his ground, and the more definitely he blocked the path, the more sure Hartley became that he did so of set purpose.

“But why, why?” he asked himself, as he drove through the Cantonment towards Mrs. Wilder’s bungalow.

Atkins got off his bicycle and handed it over to his boy as he arrived at the dreary entrance.

“The Padre Sahib is out?” he said, in his brisk, matter-of-fact tones.

“The Padre Sahib is upstairs,” said the boy, with an immovable face; and Atkins went up quickly.

“Hallo, Heath, I met Hartley just now, and he said you were out.”

Heath looked up from a sheet of paper laid out on the writing-table before him.

“I did not feel up to seeing Hartley,” he said, a little stiffly.  “It is not a convenient hour for callers, so I availed myself of an excuse.”

“He told me to tell you that it was rather a pressing matter that brought him here, and I said that I would give you his message, and that you would probably go round to see him.”

“You said that, Atkins?”

His face was so drawn and unnatural that Atkins looked at him in surprise.

“I suppose I was right?”

“If Hartley wants to see me,” said Heath, in a loud, angry voice, “or if he wants to come bullying and blustering, he must write and make an appointment.  I have every right to protect myself from a man who asks personal and most impertinent questions.”