got to Prior’s Tarrant that night and so have ended the suspense under which Forsyth and the General must be laboring.
Of course the proposal was hailed with delight, Mayne only insisting that he should wake his wife and get her to prepare the spare bedroom. Of this, however, Beaumanoir would not hear, and he was trying to persuade his host to retire for the night when a dog barked furiously at the back of the house.
“That’s old Tear’em; there’ll be someone moving,” said Mayne, going out into the passage and listening intently.
Beaumanoir remained in the kitchen, but for all that it was he, with his highly strung nerves, who was the first to catch the sound of a footstep without—a stealthy footstep, not approaching the cottage door boldly, but creeping close to the window. The next instant, however, before he could communicate with Mayne, another and a brisker step, without any attempt at secrecy, crunched on the pebble path, and there came a tap at the cottage door. Mayne immediately opened it.
“Sorry to disturb you, but there has been a railway accident,” a man said in tones that struck Beaumanoir as vaguely familiar. “I’m
[185]
