"I am staying with Sir Frederick Lawson at Luccombe Hall for a few days only. I had no——"
My father raised his hand.
"Swear on what remains of your honour—swear by anything that is dearest to you—that you do not seek to discover my dwelling-place, or the name under which I choose to live. Swear that you never mention this meeting to living man or woman."
The stranger raised his hat.
"I swear," he said.
There was a dead silence for a full minute. Then my father gathered up his reins, and motioned us to ride on.
"You are fortunate as ever, Rupert Devereux," were his last words as he turned to follow us, "for, sure as there is a God above us, if I had met you here alone to-night, nay, if any other had been with me than my son, I should have killed you."
We rode home almost in silence, and, though I listened often, I never once heard the sound of horse's hoofs behind us. Whoever this man might be whom we had so strangely met, he evidently preferred to risk losing his way again, rather than chance another meeting with us.
As we walked our ponies down Porlock Hill, and came in sight of Bossington Headland, standing gloomily out into the sea, my father called William to him.
"William," he said, shortly, "I desire that you keep strictly to yourself what happened to us just now. If I hear of your mentioning so much as a word of it, you will leave my service at once."