"To be sure. You know him, then?"
"Very well indeed. We ought to have travelled together. Has the trap that took him come back yet?"
"Not it. It hasn't had time."
"It must go back with me when it does. Don't look like that, woman; here's a sovereign for the job!"
He flung the coin on the table. The woman stared at him and at it, seemed doubtful whether to take or leave the sovereign, but eventually overcame her scruples, honestly determining to throw in a good square meal for the money.
"The trap won't be back yet a bit, sir. You'll be wanting——"
"Nothing, except to be left alone," broke in the strange guest. "That's all the trouble I shall put you to—that, and to tell me when the trap's ready."
There was no use in saying more to the gentleman. He might not be quite right—he might fly at a body. The good woman left him gazing abstractedly out of the window; yet she had scarcely closed the door when she heard him clattering to and fro over the tiled floor like a caged beast.
His thoughts were in a tumult. He calmed them by a strenuous effort. He strove to look the matter in the face. What was the matter?
Ned Ryan, the Australian outlaw, who had been screened on condition that he came near the Bristos no more, had broken that condition; had somehow heard that Edmonstone was not to be one of the shooting-party in Yorkshire, and was even now the Colonel's newly-arrived guest.