magnified its importance."

"I sincerely hope I have. I am afraid not, however. Do you remember the man we saw at Mudrapilla in the Five Mile Paddock, the night before we left? His name was Murbridge."

The shock to William Standerton was every bit as severe as James had feared it would be.

"What of him?" he cried. "You don't mean to say that he is in England?"

"I am sorry to say that he is," Jim returned. "I found him in the Park this evening on his way up to the house."

The elder man turned and walked to the fireplace, where he stood looking into it in silence. Then he faced his son once more.

"What did he say to you?" he enquired at last, his voice shaking with the anxiety he could not control or hide.

"He said that he wanted to see you, and that he would do so if he had to wait at the gates for a year."

"And he will," said Standerton bitterly; "that man will hunt me to my grave. I have been cursed with him for thirty years, and do what I will I cannot throw him off."

James approached his father, and placed his hand upon his shoulder.

"Father," he began, "why won't you let me share your trouble with you? Surely we should be able to find some way of ridding ourselves of this man?"

"No, there is no way," said Standerton. "He has got a hold upon me that nothing will ever shake off."

"I will not believe, father, that he knows anything to your discredit," cried Jim passionately.

"And you are right, my lad," his father replied. "He knows nothing to my discredit. I hope no one else does; but—but there—do not ask any more. Some day I will tell you the whole miserable story. But not now. You must not ask me. Believe me, dear lad, when I say that it would be better not."

"Then what will you do?"

"See him, and buy him off once more, I suppose. Then I shall have peace for a few months. Do you know where he is staying?"

"At the 'George and Dragon,'" Jim replied.

"Then I must send a note down to him and ask him to come up here," said Standerton. "Now go and dress. Don't trouble 

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