After tea she dismissed Jane, who retired to the bed-room allotted to her, which had been made very comfortable, and enlivened by a wood fire, that blazed cheerily in the wide grate.

Jane Payland's bedroom opened out of a corridor, at the end of which was the door of the sitting-room occupied by Honoria. Jane was, therefore, able to keep watch upon all who went to and fro from the sitting-room to the other part of the house. She sat with her door a little way open for this purpose.

"My lady expects some one to-night, I know," she thought to herself, as she seated herself at a little table, and began some piece of fancy-work.

She had observed that during tea Lady Eversleigh had twice looked at her watch. Why should she be so anxious about the time, if she were not awaiting some visitor, or message, or letter?

For a long time Jane Payland waited, and watched, and listened, without avail. No one went along the corridor to the blue parlour, except the chambermaid who removed the tea-things.

Jane looked at her own watch, and found that it was past nine o'clock.

"Surely my lady can have no visitor to-night?" she thought.

A quarter of an hour after this, she was startled by the creaking sound of a footstep on the uncarpeted floor of the corridor. She rose hastily and softly from her chair, crept to the door, and peeped put into the passage. As she did so, she saw a man approaching, dressed like a countryman, in a clumsy frieze coat, and with his chin so muffled in a woollen scarf, and his felt hat drawn so low over his eyes, that there was nothing visible of him but the end of a long nose.

That long, beak-like nose seemed strangely familiar to Miss Payland; and yet she could not tell where she had seen it before.

The countryman went straight to the blue parlour, opened the door, and went in. The door closed behind him, and then Jane Payland heard the faint sound of voices within the apartment.

It was evident that this countryman was Lady Eversleigh's expected guest.

Jane's wonderment was redoubled by this extraordinary proceeding.

"What does it all mean?" she asked herself. "Is this man some humble relation of my lady's? Everyone knows that her birth was obscure; but no one can tell where she came from. Perhaps this is her native place, and it is to see her own people she comes here."

Jane was obliged to be satisfied with this explanation, for no other was within her reach; but it did not altogether allay her curiosity.

The interview between Lady Eversleigh and her visitor was a long one.

It was half-past ten o'clock before the strange-looking countryman quitted the blue parlour.

This occurred three days before Christmas-day. On the following evening another stranger arrived at Frimley by the mail-coach, which passed through the quiet town at about seven o'clock.

This traveller did not patronise the "Rose and Crown" inn, though the coach changed horses at that hostelry. He alighted from the outside of the coach while it stood before the door of the "Rose and Crown,"

waited until his small valise had been fished out of the boot, and then departed through the falling snow, carrying this valise, which was his only luggage.

He walked at a rapid pace to the other end of the long, straggling street, where there was a humbler inn, called the "Cross Keys." Here he entered, and asked for a bed-room, with a good fire, and something or other in the way of supper.

It was not till he had entered the room that the traveller took off the rough outer coat, the collar of which had almost entirely concealed his face. When he did so, he revealed the sallow countenance of Victor Carrington, and the flashing black eyes, which to-night shone with a peculiar brightness.

After he had eaten a hasty meal, he went out into the inn-yard, despite the fast-falling snow, to smoke a cigar, he said, to one of the servants whom he encountered on his way.

He had not been long in the yard, when a man emerged from one of the adjacent buildings, and approached him in a slow and stealthy manner.

"All right, guv'nor," said the man, in a low voice; "I've been on the look-out for you for the last two days."

The man was Jim Hawkins, Mr. Spavin's groom.

"Is 'Wild Buffalo' here?" asked Victor.

"Yes, sir; as safe and as comfortable as if he'd been foaled here."

"And none the worse for his journey?"

"Not a bit of it, sir. I brought him down by easy stages, knowing you wanted him kept fresh. And fresh he is--oncommon. P'raps you'd like to have a look at him."

"I should."

The groom led Mr. Carrington to a loose box, and the surgeon had the pleasure of beholding the bay horse by the uncertain light of a stable lantern.

The animal was, indeed, a noble specimen of his race.

It was only in the projecting eye-ball, the dilated nostril, the defiant carriage of the head, that his evil temper exhibited itself.

Victor Carrington stood at a little distance from him, contemplating him in silence for some minutes.

"Have you ever noticed that spot?" asked Victor, presently, pointing to the white patch inside the animal's hock.

"Well, sir, one can't help noticing it when one knows where to look for it, though p'raps a stranger mightn't see it. That there spot's a kind of a blemish, you see, to my mind; for, if it wasn't for that, the brute wouldn't have a white hair about him."

"That's just what I've been thinking," answered Victor. "Now, my friend is just the sort of man to turn up his nose at a horse with anything in the way of a blemish about him, especially if he sees it before he has tried the animal, and found out his merits. But I've hit upon a plan for getting the better of him, and I want you to carry it out for me."

"I'm your man, guv'nor, whatever it is."

The surgeon produced a phial from his pocket, and with the phial a small painters' brush.

"In this bottle there's a brown dye," he said; "and I want you to paint the white spot with that brown dye after you've groomed the 'Buffalo,'

so that whenever my friend comes to claim the horse the brute may be ready for him. You must apply the dye three or four times, at short intervals. It's a pretty fast one, and it'll take a good many pails of water to wash it out."

Jim Hawkins laughed heartily at the idea of this manoeuvre.

"Why you are a rare deep one, guv'nor," he exclaimed; "that there game is just like the canary dodge, what they do so well down Seven Dials way. You ketches yer sparrer, and you paints him a lively yeller, and then you sells him to your innocent customer for the finest canary as ever wabbled in the grove--a little apt to be mopish at first, but warranted to sing beautiful as soon as ever he gets used to his new master and missus. And, oh! don't he just sing beautiful--not at all neither."

"There's the bottle, Hawkins, and there's the brush. You know what you've got to do."

"All right, guv'nor."

"Good night, then," said Victor, as he left the stable.

He did not stay to finish his cigar under the fast-falling snow; but walked back to his own room, where he slept soundly.

He was astir very early the next morning. He went down stairs, after breakfasting in his own room, saw the landlord, and hired a good strong horse, commonly used by the proprietor of the "Cross Keys" on all his journeys to and from the market-town and outlying villages.

Victor Carrington mounted this horse, and rode across the Common to the village of Hallgrove.

He stopped to give his horse a drink of water before a village inn, and while stopping to do this he asked a few questions of the ostler.

"Whereabouts is Hallgrove Rectory?" he asked.

"About a quarter of a mile farther on, sir," answered the man; "you can't miss it if you keep along that road. A big red house, by the side of a river."

"Thanks. This is a great place for hunting, isn't it?"