"You brought your father's letter with you?" I suggested.

"Yes."

"But there is a lodge. We passed through the gates to-night."

"Fortune favoured me. That morning, after I had escaped from Treviscoe, just as I came up to the lodge gates, I saw two men talking to each other. I heard the one call the other Adam Coad."

"I see; and Adam received you?"

"After I had proved to him who I was—yes."

"And—and you trust him?"

"He is all my father said of him, and more. He has been kindness itself to me; through him I was able to bring you here. You are safe, too. Old Adam, his wife, and a serving-man who has lived with them all these years, are all, I verily believe, ready to die for me."

"Then you are staying here in secret?"