as they walked together he knew that the difference in their stations would ever be a barrier between them. He was poor and could never aspire to her hand.
“I hear you have just returned from abroad,” she remarked.
“Yes. I sailed from Buenos Ayres six weeks ago,” he replied. “I’m a mining engineer, and we’ve been prospecting in the Andes.”
“And were you successful?”
“Fortunately, yes. But I expect to go away again very soon—that is, if I can obtain what I want, namely, a concession from the Moorish Government to prospect for emeralds beyond the Atlas Mountains. According to records left by the ancients there is a rich deposit of emeralds in the Wad Sus district, and I am hoping to be able to discover it.”
“How exciting! Fancy discovering emeralds?” Roddy laughed, and replied:
“The probability is that I shall fail. But if I get the concession I shall do my best.”
“I certainly wish you every good luck,” the girl said. “It must be awfully exciting to go prospecting. I suppose you meet with all sorts of adventures?”
“Oh! We have curious experiences sometimes,” he said lightly, and then he went on to describe a very narrow escape from drowning he had had once while at work on the bank of the Amazon.
On her part, she told him she was delighted with Farncombe.
“I’m tired of the rush of life in London,” she said. “My father is compelled to entertain a great deal at Park Lane, and I have to be hostess. But it is so very pleasant to live here in the country and have one’s friends down from town. We had a big house-party last week and had a ripping time. We shall have a shooting-party next week, and another the week after.”
Roddy was silent for a few moments, for they were already in the avenue and in sight of the lights of the great mansion.
“I had better leave you here, Miss Sandys,” he said, with undisguised regret. “And if you are to be so busy I fear I shall not have the pleasure of meeting you again before I go.” Then as he raised his hat, she replied cheerily: “Perhaps we may meet again very soon. Who knows? Thanks ever so much, Mr Homfray. It was very good of you to come all this way. Good-night?”
And she turned and left him.
Chapter Two.
The Rector’s Secret Visitor.
While Roddy Homfray had been strolling at Elma’s side, his father had still sat, gloomy and thoughtful, in the firelight at the Rectory.
The light evening meal which the rector always took on Sunday evening had been placed upon the table by old Mrs Bentley, who, after lighting the gas, had retired to her part of the rambling house. But the food had remained untouched.
The rector had sat nearly half an hour in the silence of the long, old room with its low-pitched ceiling and black oak beams. Deep in his arm-chair he did not stir, his bearded chin resting upon his thin hands, his brows knit in reflection. He was thinking—thinking, as ghosts of the past arose before him, visions of scenes which in vain he had always tried to put from him, and to blot out from his memory.
The silence of the room was broken only by the crackling of the big logs and the slow tick of the grandfather clock in the corner by the door, till suddenly the church clock chimed the hour of nine across the hills.
Then, scarcely had it ceased when there was the noise of a door handle being slowly turned, and next moment the heavy green curtains before the French window were drawn aside and a dark-haired, rather handsome woman of forty, wearing a close-fitting hat and a coney seal coat with skunk collar, stepped into the room.
Old Mr Homfray, startled at the sound, turned in his chair, and then springing to his feet faced her.
“You!” he gasped. “Why do you dare to come here? What do you want?” he asked angrily.
“To speak privately with you,” was her hard reply. “I didn’t want others to know of my visit, and thinking the window might possibly be unlatched, I tried it, and came in this way.”
“Then go out the same way!” commanded the old clergyman angrily. “How dare you come here?”
“Because I want to say something to you.”
“I don’t wish to—and won’t hear it!”
“You shall, Mr Homfray!” replied the woman, whose face was full of evil, her eyes glittering like those of a serpent. “I come to-night as messenger from a man you know—from Gordon Gray.”
“From Gordon Gray—you?” gasped the rector in surprise. “Why should he send you to me?”
“Because he thought it best not to come himself.”
“If he wishes to speak to me let him face me here,” Mr Homfray said boldly.
“Ah?” laughed the woman as though in triumph. “I seem to be an unwelcome visitor.”
“How could you be otherwise, after what has passed?” queried the old fellow.
“Well, don’t let us have any more bickering. Let’s come to business. Mr Gray wants to know whether you intend paying?”
“Not a penny—until the money is due next August.”
“But it was due last August,” the woman declared.
“That is quite untrue,” replied the rector very quietly.
“Well, the date is on the deed.”
“If it is, then the date has been altered.”
“But you have a copy.”
“No. I can’t find it. I must have mislaid it. Is there no stamp, with date?”
“It was never stamped. Mr Gray’s solicitors have already written to you three times about it, and you have not replied.”
“I have been away, taking duty in Switzerland. Besides, I understood that Gordon Gray died in New York last year, and—”
“And you thought that by that fact you would escape your indebtedness—eh?” laughed the woman as she stood beside the table, an erect smart figure which was well known in certain disreputable night-clubs in the West End. “But Gordon Gray attended service in your church to-night, and you must have seen him in the flesh.”
“I did,” replied the old man hoarsely. “Sight of him recalled many events of the past.”
“Things that you wish to forget—eh, Mr Homfray?” she said in a hard voice. “But Gordon wants his money. If you allege fraud on the part of his solicitors you had better write to them.”
“Why does Gray send you here? You, of all women! What does he intend to do?” asked the grave old man.
“To sell the property if you can’t pay him. He has already given you several months’ grace. And besides, you’ve never answered any letters, nor have you paid any interest on the loan.”
“Because the money is not yet due,” declared the Rector of Little Farncombe. “If you knew the facts you would never make this illegal demand.”
“I know all the facts. Gordon means to sell the property if you cannot pay at once.”
Norton Homfray bit his lip. Only during the past two years had he suspected his whilom friend Gordon Gray, and that suspicion had that night been confirmed by the presence there of that vampire woman, Freda Crisp, whose dark, handsome face he had hoped never to look upon again. Gray, the son of