“No, no, find it out for yourself,” he said, chuckling with a merriment in which, for once his cold eyes seemed to take full share.

“I’ll go on trying,” said Dunn, and it grew to be quite a custom between them for Deede Dawson to ask him how he was getting on with the problem; and for Dunn to reply that he was still searching for the key move.

Several times little errands took Dunn into the village, where, discreetly listening to the current gossip, he learned that Mr. John Clive of Ramsdon Place had been injured in an attack made upon him by a gang of ferocious poachers—­at least a dozen in number —­but was making good progress towards recovery.

Also, he found that Mr. John Clive’s visits to Bittermeads had not gone unremarked, or wholly uncriticized, since there was a vague feeling that a Mr. Clive of Ramsdon Place ought to make a better match.

“But a pretty face is all a young man thinks of,” said the more experienced; and on the whole, it seemed to be felt that the open attention Clive paid to Ella was at least easily to be understood.

Almost the first visit Clive paid, when he was allowed to venture out, was to Bittermeads; and Dunn, returning one afternoon from an errand, found him established on the lawn in the company of Ella, and looking little the worse for his adventure.

He and Ella seemed to be talking very animatedly, and Dunn took the opportunity to busy himself with some gardening work not far away, so that he could watch their behaviour.

He told himself it was necessary he should know in what relation they stood to each other, and as he heard them chatting and laughing together with great apparent friendliness and enjoyment, he remembered with considerable satisfaction how he had already broken one rib of Clive’s, and he wished very much for an opportunity to break another.

For, without knowing why, he was beginning to conceive an intense dislike for Clive; and, also, it did not seem to him quite good taste for Ella to sit and chat and laugh with him so readily.

“But we were told,” he caught a stray remark of Ella’s, “that it was a gang of at least a dozen that attacked you.”

“No,” answered Clive reluctantly.  “No, I think there was only one.  But he had a grip like a bear.”

“He must have been very strong,” remarked Ella thoughtfully.

“I would give fifty pounds to meet him again, and have it out in the light, when one could see what one was doing,” declared Clive with great vigour.

“Oh, you would, would you?” muttered Dunn to himself.  “Well, one of these days I may claim that fifty.”

He looked round at Clive as he thought this, and Clive noticed him, and said: 

“Is that a new man you’ve got there Miss Cayley?  Doesn’t he rather want a shave?  Where on earth did Mr. Dawson pick him up?”

“Oh, he came here with the very best testimonials, and father engaged him on the spot,” answered Ella, touching her wrists thoughtfully.  “He certainly is not very handsome, but then that doesn’t matter, does it?”