While Harding sat talking to Brennan in the office, Bessie came to him with a note.

"Mrs. Eustace asked me to give you this, sir," the girl said, as she handed it to him at the door.

He tore open the envelope. A single sheet of paper was enclosed, on which was written, "For the sake of the bygone days, come to me."

"Where is Mrs. Eustace?" he asked.

"She's in her room, Mr. Harding, in her little sitting-room."

It was one of the rooms where he had never been, a tiny chamber at the far end of the passage which she had made into a boudoir. Once he had seen into it through the open door, seen the daintiness with which it was decorated, a daintiness redolent of her as he had known her in the days when, for him, the world held no other woman.

And she had chosen this as the place where they should meet!

He knocked at the door, and heard her voice answer, bidding him to come in. She was sitting in a cane lounge-chair, listless, pale, and weary-eyed.

As he entered she gave him one swift glance and then looked away.

"Do you wish to see me, Mrs. Eustace?" he asked in a cold, formal voice.

She did not reply at once, but sat with her head bowed and her hands loosely clasped in her lap.

"If you will say what you wish to as quickly as you can, I shall be obliged," he said. "Brennan is in the office, and I have some matters to arrange with him."

Her head was raised slowly, steadily, until her face was turned full towards him.

"Will you please arrange them first?" she replied. "I want to say something which may take some time, and I—I would not inconvenience the bank."

"I would rather hear what you have to say first, Mrs. Eustace."

She shook her head.

"It is not a matter I can sum up in a few brief sentences," she replied. "If you cannot arrange things with Brennan and then come to me here, pray forget I mentioned anything about it."

He moved uneasily as she averted her face and sat back in her chair.

"I will see what I can do," he said shortly, and left the room.

When he returned to the office he found Brennan talking to Bessie, who had brought him some supper and a couple of blankets with which to make a bed on the floor. Brennan nodded towards them as Bessie disappeared.

"You know the idea of my being here at all, don't you?" he asked.

"To tell you the truth, I don't," Harding replied.

"The Sub-Inspector fancies someone may try to get back to learn what he can about our doings. You know who will most likely be asked, and so you see what it means when, as soon as I am here, and before I say a word about staying, these things are brought in. As if there is likely to be any sleep for me with the chance of the Sub-Inspector riding up any hour and catching me off duty. But it shows what's in the wind, doesn't it?"

"Mrs. Eustace has asked me to discuss something with her," Harding said quietly. "She knows you are here to-night."

"Oh, yes, Mr. Harding. She knows that, I've no doubt, but how did she or the girl know I was to be on duty here all the night? Don't you see? Supposing the Sub-Inspector is right, and a certain person we know wants to hear all that had happened since he went away, is he likely to come while I am here? It is not difficult to put a lighted lamp in a window, or to leave a blind pulled up or drawn down, is it? Anything of the kind is enough to give him a warning that the coast is clear or that there is danger ahead."

"Oh, but we can easily stop that," Harding exclaimed. "We can easily prevent any signal being used."

"If you know what the signal is," Brennan said. "But if you don't know, what are you to do?"

"We shall have to watch."

"That's it, we shall have to watch and take care nobody knows it," Brennan replied in a low tone. "Have you a revolver?"

"No. The one we kept in the bank was stolen from the drawer with the money."

"Then slip this into your pocket," Brennan said, as he passed a bright nickel-plated "bull-dog" to Harding. "It's loaded in all the chambers and has a snap trigger; but it's no good for a long shot, though it makes as much noise as a service carbine. Don't hesitate to use it if anything happens—the noise will let me know, and there's no danger of hitting anyone with it unless you are a better shot than I am."

"But where are you going?"

Brennan jerked his head towards the door.

"You see me off the premises and then tell the girl to fetch those blankets away again. After that, keep your eyes open and rest assured that as soon as you let off the barker I've given you, I shall not be far off. If there is any arrangement such as I have suggested, my going now will put them off their guard and our gentleman will get the signal to make his call as expected. Bringing in those blankets has given the game away—to me it shows just what is in the wind."

When he had seen Brennan off the premises, Harding told Bessie to remove the blankets from the office, and returned to the little room.

The door was ajar when he reached it, but there was no answer to his rap. He pushed it open and entered. Mrs. Eustace was not there.

He turned, and came face to face with her as he stood in the doorway, though he had not heard her approach.

"I did not hear you coming," he exclaimed.

"No, I am wearing light shoes," she answered. "But won't you sit down? Have you made all your arrangements? I don't want to begin to say what I wish if you will have to go away before I have finished."

"There is nothing to call me away now. Brennan has gone," he said, as he took the chair she indicated.

"Before I begin, I must ask you to forgive me for mentioning the subject at all," she said slowly.

She sat facing him and, up to that moment, had kept her eyes fixed on him; but as she ceased speaking she glanced aside until her head was bowed as it had been previously. He took advantage of the opportunity to give one quick look round. The chair in which he sat was so placed that the profile of the person occupying it was thrown by the light of the lamp directly upon the window-blind. The window faced the bush at the back of the bank.

He moved his chair until his shadow fell on the wall, but then the lamp was between her and himself, and he could not watch her face.

"I will take this chair," he said shortly, as he stepped to the one where she had been sitting when he first came to the room. From it he commanded not only a complete view of her, but also out of the window, for the blind, pulled down to the full extent, was slightly askew, and left a space between it and the window-pane. Through that space he could see across the yard to the fence running round the allotment, and beyond it to the dark line of the bush, rendered the darker at the moment by the soft sheen of the rising moon showing above it.

A silence followed his movement, a silence during which she fidgeted uneasily and impatiently.

"You do not answer," she said presently. "Shall I go on?"

"I am waiting for you to do so," he replied.

"You will forgive me for mentioning this subject?"

"You have not mentioned any subject yet, Mrs. Eustace. I don't know what it is you wish to talk about."

"I am afraid it is very distasteful to you. I am not surprised if it is, but—if you knew everything in connection with it, you might think differently. That is why I want to tell you."

"Yes," he said indifferently, as she paused.

"You do not want to speak of it," she said again. "But I must explain—I ought to have done so directly you came up here. I want to explain my conduct to you when I returned your——"

"There is no need," he interrupted her. "That matter was at an end at once. There is no benefit to be gained by attempting to revive it."

"I do not seek to revive it," she retorted, colouring at his words. "Surely if I wish to set straight what I know is not straight, I am not seeking to revive it? I wish to make one thing clear to you. You have not known Charlie as long as I have. Neither do you know him as well as I do. In the face of the accusations made by that police inspector anything may be said or suspected."

He did not reply, and she went on.

"You, hearing Charlie painted in the blackest colours, are not likely to raise any protest either to yourself or to anyone else. You will rather believe all ill of him and will most likely impute things to him he never did. One thing I do not want blamed on to him. Those letters and things which were sent back to you, I sent—I sent them entirely myself—Charlie did not send them—I sent them."

She looked up at him quickly and then away as though she feared to meet his eyes.

"Is that all you wished to tell me?" he asked.

"I wished to tell you—all about it. I do not want you to blame Charlie. It was not his fault—nothing was his fault. I was a silly, flighty girl and fancied myself in love with everyone, whereas, really, I never cared at all, not until I met him. I don't want you to think he was to blame, because, if you do, you may want to be revenged on him, and now you have this opportunity you may take it. If you believe me and realise he had nothing whatever to do with my changing my mind, more than to come into my life, as he did, then you may sympathise with him in his present trouble and save him all you can."

She did not attempt to look at him again as she spoke. He leaned back in his chair and turned his glance away from her, away to the space between the window and the blind. The first glint of the moon was stealing over the dark line of the bush and spreading over the open country between it and the line of fence. He could see, indistinctly, what seemed to be a heavy shadow moving slowly away from the trees.

"It is a subject on which I would rather say nothing, Mrs. Eustace," he said presently, without removing his eyes from the window. "If you wish to speak about it, and you think it will ease your mind in any way, I will listen to all you wish to say. But do not expect me to reply to you. Do not expect me to express any opinion. I do not wish to appear harsh, but I must tell you that so far as I am concerned, the curtain was rung down upon the last act of my romance when my letters were returned—was rung down to remain down for ever."

"I was afraid it would be a distasteful subject to you," she said; "but I must talk about it—I must. I have wanted to tell you for so long—I wanted to write to you and explain after the things were sent off, but—but it was so difficult. I felt how horrible it was of me, how horrible and how mean, never to say one word, but just throw everything in your face after—after all you had done for me. I deserve to suffer what I am going through now—I deserve everything. It was so contemptible of me to allow myself to be—to do what I did," she added quickly, and he felt rather than saw the way she glanced at him, for he was still staring out through the narrow opening between the window and the blind, away at the curious dark shadowy patch which was slowly moving further and further away from the line of thickly growing trees.

"Won't you say one word? Not even that you forgive me?"

Her voice was soft and gentle—the voice he remembered having heard so often in the bygone days—the days for whose sake she had appealed to him to come to her. He leaned forward in his chair, staring through the little slit of space between the blind and the window, intent upon distinguishing what it was he saw, resenting what he believed to be her efforts to beguile him.

"Do you hate me so much?"

Scarcely above a whisper the words reached him, a whisper with tears in it, and his heart shrank at the sound. He turned quickly towards her.

She started impulsively to her feet and held out her hands to him.

"Fred!" she exclaimed.

He sat unmoved, for the shadow in the distance was growing more and more distinct, and the suspicion with which he regarded her drove away every particle of commiseration, and made him blind to the emotion welling up in her eyes, hostile to the pathos in her voice.

She clasped her hands and let them drop limply in front of her as she sank into her chair again.

"Oh, I am so lonely, so lonely," she murmured, "I don't know what to do. If you would only help me. I know I behaved horribly to you, vilely; but surely—surely you have some pity for me in my misfortune. I have no one to turn to—no one—no one. If you would only help me to understand—if you would only talk the matter over with me, it would be some relief."

"There can be no benefit in talking over what has passed—the best thing is to forget it ever happened. That is what I have striven to do. If you returned my letters of your own free will, you were merely exercising a right to which you were perfectly entitled. You preferred Eustace to me, that is all."

"All?" she echoed in a tone of amazement. "All? Is that what you thought? Is that what you think?"

"What else can I think?" he retorted. "If you chose for yourself——"

She sprang up and faced him with widely opened, gleaming eyes.

"I did not," she cried. "I did not. There! Now you know. It was a——"

She stopped abruptly, staring with eyes so full of entreaty that he looked away from her lest the emotion roused by her words, by her attitude and her eyes, carried him away at a moment when he required above all things complete self-control. To avoid her eyes he turned once more to the window—the moving shadow had grown clearer—it had split in twain, and he could distinctly see the forms of two horsemen riding swiftly towards the bank.

The sight sent a chill through him; he recoiled from the woman whose pleading a moment before had thrilled him, recoiled from her as from some reptile. While she was appealing to him, pleading with him, the man she was expecting—whom she was even ready to vilify in order to throw dust in the eyes of the one who was a menace to him—was coming in response, probably, to a signal given by the clear, lamp-lit window-blind.

He faced her where she stood, his eyes hard and cold, his mouth set stern.

"I prefer not to hear anything further on the subject," he said in a measured tone. "It is a subject which does not now concern me."

"Fred!"

Despite his anger, despite the resentment the spectacle of those two riders had roused within him, the anguish in her voice cut him. Her eyes, fixed on his, were filled with intense sorrow, her face went ashen.

"Oh, Fred! I——"

She swayed as she stood, staggered, and sank into the chair between the lamp and the window, flinging her arms out over the table and burying her head upon them as she gave vent to a fit of sobbing. But as she moved, her shadow swept across the blind.

He looked out again upon the moonlit scene—the horsemen had passed from the field of vision. He leaned forward to get a wider view, but there was no further sign of them—it was as though the shadow passing across the blind had been a danger signal on which they had acted immediately it was given.

He wondered whether Brennan had seen them, whether he was also on the look out or was waiting hidden somewhere until he heard the warning shot. Harding was to fire in the event of anything happening. Ought he to fire now? Ought he to give the alarm or wait, lest the sound of the shot warned the two horsemen as well as alarmed Brennan?

Leaning forward, with his attention riveted as he gazed through the narrow slit, he scarcely noticed that Mrs. Eustace had ceased to sob—the sudden appearance of her head, in shadow, upon the blind, made him start to his feet.

"Put out that lamp," he exclaimed, but before she could move he was past her and had blown out the flame.

"Fred! What is it?" she asked in an agitated whisper.

"Silence," he said fiercely, as he crept back to the window and stooped to peer into the night.

Along the fence which formed the boundary of the bank's ground, the fence Durham had pointed out as the one over which Eustace must have made his escape, he saw the figure of a man stealthily creeping.

He thrust his hand into the pocket where he had slipped the revolver Brennan had given him.

"Fred! Fred! What do you see?" he heard Mrs. Eustace whisper, and in the dim obscurity he saw her come to his side.

"Quiet," he said harshly.

Both her hands, trembling, touched his arm.

"Tell me," she whispered; "I will be brave. Who is it you see?"

The thin streak of moonlight falling through the narrow space between the blind and the window glinted on the bright barrel of the revolver, as he drew it from his pocket.

She fell on her knees beside him, her arms flung round him, her voice in his ear.

"Oh, Fred—no, not that! Is it Charlie? Oh, don't—don't——"

He pushed her back roughly, his eyes straining to catch another glimpse of the creeping figure which had gone out of sight as he raised his revolver ready to fire.

"Oh, no, no! Don't shoot him! Don't, Fred, don't! He——"

Her words ended in a shriek, for even as she spoke there appeared outside the window, showing clear with the moonlight falling full upon it, the face of a yellow-bearded man. Harding wrested himself free from her clinging arms, leapt to the window, and tore the blind away.

The form of the man, running swiftly, was disappearing amongst the bushes.

Heedless of the glass in front of him, of the terrified woman at his knees, Harding raised his revolver and fired.

As the shivered glass crashed to the ground, the report of other shots, fired in rapid succession, came from outside, and across the patch of grass, firing as he ran, Brennan dashed after the runaway.

Harding scrambled through the broken window and ran after him.

From behind the clustering shrubs which formed a screen in front of the chicken-run, there came the sound of horses galloping. Brennan stopped as he heard it. When Harding caught up to him, he was rapidly reloading his revolver.

"He's slipped us," he cried. "The sub-inspector has my horse, and ordered me not to leave the bank till he came back. And there's that scoundrel riding away from under our noses!"

"Did you see him?" Harding exclaimed.

"See him? Wasn't I crawling on him round the house when she screamed out to him, and you fired? Another two minutes and I had him, yellow beard and all. Now we know who the man was who called at the bank to cash a cheque after hours. Anyhow, I'll have the woman safe before she can do any more mischief. I'll arrest her right away, and the girl as well. They're both in the game, if you ask me."