So much having been stated by way of prelusion, it becomes needful, for a due understanding of the way in which Philip Winslade came to be mixed up with the Loudwater Tragedy, that our narrative should revert to a date several months anterior to that of Fanny Sudlow's letter to her lover.
THE NARRATIVE
[CHAPTER I.]
ON THE EDGE OF A SECRET.
Probably there was no happier man in all England than Philip Winslade on the particular afternoon on which we make his acquaintance.
At this time he had just turned his twenty-eighth birthday. He was a thin, active, keen-faced gentlemanly young fellow, with an aquiline nose and very bright and piercing steel-gray eyes. In colour his hair was a light brown, and it was perhaps owing to the fact that he was clean shaven, except for an inch of whisker on either cheek, that he looked younger than his years; that he did look so was, however, undisputable.
The cause of his felicity was not far to seek. The fact was that, while on his way down from London that afternoon, the man of all others whom he was desirous of seeing, and who for the past week or more had never been out of his thoughts for long at a time, had recognised him as the train drew up at a roadside station, and having thereupon joined him in his compartment, had, by so doing, afforded him the opportunity to seek which had been the main object of his journey. The person in question was the Rev. Louth Sudlow, vicar of St. Michael's, Iselford--a portly, handsome man of middle age, and a dignitary of some importance among that section of provincial society in which he habitually moved. Just now, however, the Vicar's sole importance in the eyes of Philip Winslade lay in the fact that he was the father of a very charming daughter with whom that young man had seen fit to fall in love.
The chance which had not only landed the Vicar in the same compartment, but had left it free from the intrusion of other passengers, was too opportune a one not to be seized on by Winslade. For one thing, and with him it went for much, their accidental encounter would do away with the need for a formal call at the Vicarage as a preliminary to a request for a private interview--a species of cold-blooded proceeding which struck him with a chill as often as he contemplated it. Further, it would obviate the risk of his being seen and questioned by Mrs. Sudlow, an ordeal to which he was far from desirous of submitting himself.
"So you have got back safe and sound from your trip," began the Vicar, as he shook hands with Phil and proceeded to settle himself in the opposite corner of the carriage. "I hope you had what our cousins across the water call a 'good time' while you were away."
"On that score, sir, I had nothing to complain of; and, if I may be allowed to mention such a thing, it is gratifying to me to know that I was enabled to transact the special business which took me to the States to the satisfaction of those who sent me."