Philip Chater rose hurriedly to his feet; advanced to the girl, and took her by the shoulders. “Look here, my dear,” he said—and his voice was really very plaintive—“if I kissed you, I’m very sorry—I mean—I ought not to have done it. In fact, there are a lot of things I’ve done in the past—and I’ve left them behind. You’re a very pretty girl—and I’m quite sure you’re a good girl; but you’d better not have anything more to do with me. It’s only too evident that I’m a bad lot. I think—in fact I’m quite sure—you’d better go home.”

He turned away, and walked further into the wood. Looking back, after going a little way, he saw her crouched down upon the ground, weeping as if her heart would break. Hastily consigning the late Dandy Chater’s love-affairs to a region where cynics assert they have their birth, he retraced his steps, and raised the girl from the ground. She was very pretty, and seemed so much a child that the man tenderly patted her shoulder, in an endeavour to comfort her.

“There—don’t cry, little one. I know I’ve been a brute—or, at least, I suppose I have; and I——”

“No—you haven’t,” sobbed the girl. “And please don’t mind me; you’d better go away; you’d better not be seen with me. He’ll kill you, if he finds us together—he said he would.”

“Who’ll kill me?” asked Philip, glancing round involuntarily.

“Harry.” She was still sobbing, but he caught the name distinctly.

“And who the deuce is Harry?”

“As if you didn’t know! Why, Harry, of course—your servant. And he’ll keep his word, too.”

CHAPTER V AN HONEST SAILOR-MAN

Philip Chater sat over the fire late that night, in a futile endeavour to see his new position clearly, and to decide upon the best course of action for him to adopt. Try as he would, however, the thing resolved itself merely into this: that Dandy Chater was dead, and that he (Philip), together with possibly one other man, alone knew of his death; that Philip Chater was accepted by every one—even the most intimate—as the real Dandy; that, in that capacity, he was already engaged to be married—had left a girl crying in the wood, that very day, whose name he did not know, but who obviously regarded him with 

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