I found him standing with his back to the fire puffing at his cigarette with a plump solemnity. A bag, neatly shaped, lay on the rug at his feet. He nodded a welcome, watching me over his glasses.
"I expected you, Mr. Phillips," he said. "And how do you explain it?"
"A love affair or temporary insanity," I suggested vaguely.
"Surely we can combine those solutions," he smiled. "Anything else?"
"No. I came to ask your opinion."
"My mind is void of theories, Mr. Phillips, and I shall endeavor to keep it so for the present. If you wish to amuse yourself by discussing possibilities, I would suggest your consideration of the reason why, if he wanted to disappear quietly, he should leave so obvious a track through the snow of his own lawn. For myself, as I am leaving for Camdon via Waterloo Station in ten minutes, I shall hope for more definite data before night."
"Peace," I asked him eagerly, "may I come with you?"
"If you can be ready in time," he said.
It was past two o'clock when we arrived at the old town of Camdon. A carriage met us at the station. Five minutes more and we were clear of the narrow streets and climbing the first bare ridge of the downs. It was a desolate prospect enough—a bare expanse of wind-swept land that rose and fell with the sweeping regularity of the Pacific swell. Here and there a clump of ragged firs showed black against the snow. Under that gentle carpet the crisp turf of the crests and the broad plow lands of the lower ground alike lay hidden. I shivered, drawing my coat more closely about me.
It was half an hour later that we topped a swelling rise and saw the gray towers of the ancient mansion beneath us. In the shelter of the valley by the quiet river, that now lay frozen into silence, the trees had grown into splendid woodlands, circling the hall on the further side. From the broad front the white lawns crept down to the road on which we were driving. Dark masses of shrubberies and the tracery of scattered trees broke their silent curves. The park wall that fenced them from the road stood out like an ink line ruled upon paper.