light overcoat.  The overcoat was open and I saw that he was wearing it over evening dress.  That caught my attention.  What was this swell in evening dress doing there with a girl?  I slowed down and dismounted.  They didn’t see me.  I got into the shadow of a whitethorn.  They turned their faces so that the moon beat full on them.  I saw them as plain as I see you.  They were Colonel Boyce, V.C.,—­Major then—­and your daughter, Mr. Mayor, Miss Althea Fenimore.”

He paused as though to point the dramatic effect, and twisted round, sticking out his horrible beard at Sir Anthony.  Sir Anthony, his hands thrust deep in his trouser-pockets and his bullet head bent forward, glared at him balefully out of his old blue eyes.  But he said never a word.  Gedge continued.

“They didn’t speak very loud, so I could only hear a scrap or two of their conversation.  They seemed to be quarrelling—­she wanted him to do something which he wouldn’t do.  I heard the words ‘marriage’ and ‘disgrace.’  They stood still for a moment.  Then they turned back.  I had overtaken them, you know.  I remounted my bicycle and rode to The Three Feathers.  I was there about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes.  Then I rode back for home.  When I came in sight of the lock, there I saw a man standing alone, sharp in the moonlight.  As I came nearer I recognised the same man, Major Boyce.  There were no lights in the lock-keeper’s cottage.  He and his wife had gone to bed long before.  I was so interested that I forgot what I was doing and ran into the hedge so that I nearly came down.  There was the noise of the scrape and drag of the machine which must have sounded very loud in the stillness.  It startled him, for he looked all round, but he didn’t see me, for I was under the hedge.  Then suddenly he started running.  He ran as if the devil was after him.  I saw him squash down his Trilby hat so that it was shapeless.  Then he disappeared along the path.  I thought this a queer proceeding.  Why should he have taken to his heels?  I thought I should like to see him again.  If he kept to the towing-path, his shortest way home, he was bound to go along the Chestnut Avenue, where, as you know, the road and the path again come together.  On a bicycle it was easy to get there before him.  I sat down on a bench and waited.  Presently he comes, walking fast, his hat still squashed in all over his ears.  I walked my bicycle slap in front of him.

“‘Good-night, Major,’ I said.

“He stared at me as if he didn’t know me.  Then he seemed to pull himself together and said:  ’Good-night, Gedge.  What are you doing out at this time of night?’

“‘If it comes to that, sir,’ said I, ‘what are you?’