And then it was not strange that, there in the sunshine by the roadside, at the bare thought that it was even remotely possible that such a fate might be in store for her, she sat down on the stile, clinging to the rail, trembling from head to foot.
She would have sat there longer had she not been roused by a familiar, unescapable sound--the panting of a motor. Along the road was approaching a motor bicyclist. At sight of her, and of the waiting car, he stopped, raising his cap.
"I beg your pardon, but is there anything wrong with the car?"
She stood up, still feeling that, at anyrate, there was something wrong with the world, or with her.
"No, thank you, the car's all right; I was only resting."
"I beg your pardon once more, but aren't you Miss Arnott of Exham Park?"
She looked at the speaker, which hitherto she had avoided doing. He was a young man of four or five and twenty, with a not unpleasing countenance; so far as she knew, a stranger to her.
"I am, but I don't know you."
"That is very possible--I am a person of no importance. My name is Adams--Charles Adams. I am clerk to Mr Parsloe, solicitor, of Winchester. We had a communication from a man who is in Winchester Gaol, waiting his trial for murder, a man named Baker. Possibly you have heard of him."
"Oh yes, I have heard of Jim Baker; he is a gamekeeper on my own estate."