No! I don't mean that." She clapped The Express on the table before him, and pointed with one chubby finger at an advertisement. "I mean, what do you make of that? Rhaiadr! No one can have anything to do with that word but your father--and you."     

       Hench, more puzzled than ever by her excitement, read the advertisement upon which her finger rested. "If Rhaiadr," he read aloud,       "will come to the Gipsy Stile at Cookley, Essex, at eight o'clock on the 1st of July, he will hear of something greatly to his advantage."     

       "There!" said Madame Alpenny triumphantly, and looking more shapeless than ever in her dressing-gown; "what do you think of that?"     

       "It has nothing to do with me," said Hench, with a shrug.     

       "Nothing to do with you!" she screamed. "Why, the name Rhaiadr shows that it has everything to do with you. Go there and see what it means. Ah, I always said that you were a mystery; now I am sure of it."       And she rubbed her hands.     

     

 CHAPTER V 

       THE NEXT STEP     

  

       Hench could not help admitting that the mention of the peculiar Welsh word       "Rhaiadr" in the newspaper had something to do with him. Undoubtedly he was the person whom the unknown advertiser wished to meet; but the whole matter was so strange and unexpected that he determined to think it over carefully before taking any steps. For this reason he said little to the excited Hungarian lady, who was rather annoyed by his reticence. But he did not take any notice of her hints, and retired as speedily as possible to his own room. There he lighted his pipe, sat by the window and read the advertisement twice and thrice again, after which he laid down the newspaper so that he might think more freely. And his thoughts had to do with his past life when travelling with his father.     

       The record of earlier days was bare enough, as Hench decided when he recalled the same. His father had paid strangers to look after him immediately after the death of Mrs. Hench, and when Owain was only five years of age. For years the lad saw very little of his parent, who was always moving from one place to another after the fashion of the 

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