hour when I had arranged to drive down to Melbourne to bring a few of our things up from the station; and still we were safe.
It was a relief to me to get away from the house, and to find myself alone. They always lent me the old dog-cart when I wanted to go to the town, and I said that night that I'd go by myself, for I had so many bags to bring back with me. We used to take about twenty minutes to drive into Melbourne in the ordinary way, but I shook the old mare up a bit on that occasion, for it was a quarter-past six when I passed the lodge, and I meant to get back a little after seven to help Sir Nicolas to dress. It seemed strange to me to find myself on a Derbyshire road at all, for I looked to be on the way to Paris long before then; and even as I drove along, I kept asking myself if it was me that sat there or another. I'd thought so much about the whole thing that I was almost stupid with it.
"It can't be; it can't be!" I said over and over again. "Heresford would walk a hundred miles to put a spoke in Nicky's wheel. He's sworn to hunt him out of every city in Europe, and he's a man of bis word. He must come."
I had made up my mind to this before I'd left the White House a mile behind, and I hadn't gone two miles down the road before time proved me to be right. It came about in this way. I had just turned into the lane which they call the chestnut-grove, and had given the old mare a cut with the
