“And this was the place,” said Jack, “where I said good-by to him.”

(II)

It was on the twenty-fifth of September, a Monday, that Jack sat in the smoking-room, in Norfolk jacket and gaiters, drinking tea as fast as he possibly could.  He had been out on the moors all day, and was as thirsty as the moors could make him, and he had been sensual enough to smoke a cigarette deliberately before beginning tea, in order to bring his thirst to an acute point.

Then, the instant he had finished he snatched for his case again, for this was to be the best cigarette of the whole day, and discovered that his sensuality had overreached itself for once, and that there were none left.  He clutched at the silver box with a sinking heart, half-remembering that he had filled his case with the last of them this morning.  It was a fact, and he knew that there were no others in the house.

This would never do, and he reflected that if he sent a man for some more, he would not get them for at least twenty minutes. (Jack never could understand why an able-bodied footman always occupied twenty minutes in a journey that ought to take eight.) So he put on his cap again, stepped out of the low window and set off down the drive.

* * * * *

It was getting a little dark as he passed out of the lodge-gates.  The sun, of course, had set at least an hour before behind the great hill to the west, but the twilight proper was only just beginning.  He was nearly at the place now, and as he breasted the steep ascent of the bridge, peered over it, at least with his mind’s eye, at the tobacconist’s shop—­first on the left—­where a store of “Mr. Jack’s cigarettes” was always on hand.

He noticed in the little recess I have just spoken of a man leaning with his elbows on the parapet, and staring out up the long reach of the stream to the purple evening moors against the sky and the luminous glory itself; and as he came opposite him, wondered vaguely who it was and whether he knew him.  Then, as he got just opposite him, he stopped, uneasy at heart.

* * * * *

Naturally Frank was never very far away from Jack’s thoughts just now—­ever since, indeed, he had heard the news in a very discreet letter from the Reverend James Launton a week or two ago. (I need not say he had answered this letter, not to the father, but to the daughter, but had received no reply.)

He had written a frantic letter to Frank himself then, but it had been returned, marked:  “Unknown at this address.”  And ever since he had eyed all tramps on the road with an earnestness that elicited occasionally a salute, and occasionally an impolite remark.

The figure whose back he saw now certainly was not much like Frank; but then—­again—­it was rather like him.  It was dressed in a jacket and trousers so stained with dust and wet as to have no color of their own at all, and a cloth cap of the same appearance.  A bundle tied up in a red handkerchief, and a heavy stick, rested propped against an angle of the recess.