He went into the inn.

"Is there a room in which I can dry my coat?" he asked at the bar.

He had only lately become aware of a drizzling rain which had been falling, and had soaked through his hunting-coat.

"Were you with the Horsely hounds to-day, sir?" asked the landlord.

"Yes."

"Good sport, sir?"

"No," answered Sir Reginald, curtly.

"Show the way to the parlour, Jane," said the landlord to a chambermaid, or barmaid, or girl-of-all-work, who emerged from the tap-room with a tray of earthenware mugs. "There's one gentleman there, sir; but perhaps you won't object to that, Christmas being such a particularly busy time," added the landlord, addressing Reginald.

"You'll find a good fire."

"Send me some brandy," returned Sir Reginald, without deigning to make any further reply to the landlord's apologetic speech.

He followed the girl, who led the way to a door at the end of a passage, which she opened, and ushered Sir Reginald into a light and comfortable room.

Before a large, old-fashioned fire-place sat a man, with his face hidden by the newspaper which he was reading.

Sir Reginald Eversleigh did not condescend to look at this stranger. He walked straight to the hearth; took off his dripping coat, and hung it on a chair by the side of the roaring wood fire. Then he flung himself into another chair, drew it close to the fender, and sat staring at the fire, with a gloomy face, and eyes which seemed to look far away into some dark and terrible region beyond those burning logs.

He sat in this attitude for some time, motionless as a statue, utterly unconscious that his companion was closely watching him from behind the sheltering newspaper. The inn servant brought a tray, bearing a small decanter of brandy and a glass. But the baronet did not heed her entrance, nor did he touch the refreshment for which he had asked.

Not once did he stir till the sudden crackling of his companion's newspaper startled him, and he lifted his head with an impatient gesture and an exclamation of surprise.

"You are nervous to-night, Sir Reginald Eversleigh," said the man, whose voice was still hidden by the newspaper.

The sound of the voice in which those common-place words were spoken was, at this moment, of all sounds the most hateful to Reginald Eversleigh.

"You here!" he exclaimed. "But I ought to have known that."

The newspaper was lowered for the first time; and Reginald Eversleigh found himself face to face with Victor Carrington.

"You ought, indeed, considering I told you you should find me, or hear from me here, at the 'Wheatsheaf,' in case you wished to do so, or I wished you should do so either. And I presume you have come by accident, not intentionally. I had no idea of seeing you, especially at an hour when I should have thought you would have been enjoying the hospitality of your kinsman, the rector of Hallgrove."

"Victor Carrington!" cried Reginald, "are you the fiend himself in human shape? Surely no other creature could delight in crime."

"I do not delight in crime, Reginald Eversleigh; and it is only a man with your narrow intellect who could give utterance to such an absurdity. Crime is only another name for danger. The criminal stakes his life. I value my life too highly to hazard it lightly. But if I can mould accident to my profit, I should be a fool indeed were I to shrink from doing so. There is one thing I delight in, my dear Reginald, and that is success! And now tell me why you are here to-night?"

"I cannot tell you that," answered the baronet. "I came hither, unconscious where I was coming. There seems a strange fatality in this.

I let my horse choose his own road, and he brought me here to this house--to you, my evil genius."

"Pray, Sir Reginald, be good enough to drop that high tragedy tone,"

said Victor, with supreme coolness. "It is all very well to be addressed by you as a fiend and an evil genius once in a way; but upon frequent repetition, that sort of thing becomes tiresome. You have not told me why you are wandering about the country instead of eating your dinner in a Christian-like manner at the rectory?"

"Do you not know the reason, Carrington?" asked the baronet, gazing fixedly at his companion.

"How should I know anything about it?"

"Because to-day's work has been your doing," answered Reginald, passionately; "because you are mixed up in the dark business of this day, as you were mixed up in that still darker treachery at Raynham Castle. I know now why you insisted upon my choosing the horse called 'Niagara' for my cousin Lionel; I know now why you were so interested in the appearance of that other horse, which had already caused the death of more than one rider; I know why you are here, and why Lionel Dale has disappeared in the course of the day."

"He has disappeared!" exclaimed Victor Carrington; "he is not dead?"

"I know nothing but that he has disappeared. We missed him in the midst of the hunt. We returned to the rectory in the evening, expecting to find him there."

"Did _you_ expect that, Eversleigh?"

"Others did, at any rate."

"And did you not find him ?"

"No. We left the house, after a brief delay, to seek for him; I among the others. We were to ride by different roads; to make inquiries of every kind; to obtain information from every source. My brain was dazed. I let my horse take his own road."

"Fool! coward!" exclaimed Victor Harrington, with mingled scorn and anger. "And you have abandoned your work; you have come here to waste your time, when you should seem most active in the search--most eager to find the missing man. Reginald Eversleigh, from first to last you have trifled with me. You are a villain; but you are a hypocrite. You would have the reward of guilt, and yet wear the guise of innocence, even before me; as if it were possible to deceive one who has read you through and through. I am tired of this trifling; I am weary of this pretended innocence; and to-night I ask you, for the last time, to choose the path which you mean to tread; and, once chosen, to tread it with a firm step, prepared to meet danger--to confront destiny. This very hour, this very moment, I call upon you to make your decision; and it shall be a final decision. Will you grovel on in poverty--the worst of all poverty, the gentleman's pittance? or will you make yourself possessor of the wealth which your uncle Oswald bequeathed to others?

Look me in the face, Reginald, as you are a man, and answer me, Which is it to be--wealth or poverty?"

"It is too late to answer poverty," replied the baronet, in a gloomy and sullen tone. "You cannot bring my uncle back to life; you cannot undo your work."

"I do not pretend to bring the dead to life. I am not talking of the past--I am talking of the future."

"Suppose I say that I will endure poverty rather than plunge deeper into the pit you have dug--what then?"

"In that case, I will bid you good speed, and leave you to your poverty and--a clear conscience," answered Victor, coolly. "I am a poor man myself; but I like my friends to be rich. If you do not care to grasp the wealth which might be yours, neither do I care to preserve our acquaintance. So we have merely to bid each other good night, and part company."

There was a pause--Reginald Eversleigh sat with his arms folded, his eyes fixed on the fire. Victor watched him with a sinister smile upon his face.

"And if I choose to go on," said Reginald, at last; "if I choose to tread farther on the dark road which I have trodden so long--what then?

Can you ensure me success, Victor Carrington?"

"I can," replied the Frenchman.

"Then I will go on. Yes; I will be your slave, your tool, your willing coadjutor in crime and treachery; anything to obtain at last the heritage out of which I have been cheated."

"Enough! You have made your decision. Henceforward let me hear no repinings, no hypocritical regrets. And now, order your horse, gallop back as fast as you can to the neighbourhood of Hallgrove, and show yourself foremost amongst those who seek for Lionel Dale."

"Yes, yes; I will obey you--I will shake off this miserable hesitation.

I will make my nature iron, as you have made yours."

Sir Reginald rang, and ordered his horse to be brought round to the door of the inn.

"Where and when shall I see you again?" he asked Victor, as he was putting on the coat which had hung before the fire to be dried.

"In London, when you return there."

"You leave here soon?"