Although Dare had not succeeded in persuading Miss Baynard to reverse or modify the decision she had come to in the case of her cousin\'s child, and although he was at no pains to hide his chagrin and disappointment, he and she did not fail to part as good friends are in the habit of parting. Neither of them had any wish to part otherwise, and it would have been hard to say which of them would have been the more sorry to do so; indeed, Nell was unwilling to say good-bye till she had obtained from him an address--that of a lawyer--to which she could write in case she should have occasion to communicate with him about the boy.

Both of them put the selfsame question to themselves within five minutes of their parting: "When and where, if ever, shall we meet again?"

Dare went direct from Chelsea to Holborn. Miss Baynard had said that her action was influenced by certain reasons which she did not feel at liberty to specify. Was one of those reasons based on the fact that he was now a ruined man? If so, through what channel had the information reached her?

Finding Mr. McManus as usual in his shop, Dare at once challenged him with being the tale-bearer. It was an accusation he made no attempt to rebut; but that in saying what he had to Miss Baynard he had been actuated by any feeling of ill-will towards Dare was too absurd a notion to be entertained for one moment. However, the mischief was done and could not be undone, and with all his faults Dare was not the man to vent his annoyance on so helpless an object as the old tobacconist.

But Miss Baynard had spoken as if there were more reasons than one for the decision she had arrived at. Might not another, and perhaps the chief one, lie in the fact that in him she had recognized the man who had been mixed up with herself in a certain memorable adventure, and who, when asked his name, had told her that he was none other than the notorious "Captain Nightshade"? It was a recognition he had not counted on, being unaware how incautiously he had afforded her the opportunity of scanning his features by the light of the serving-man\'s candle at the door of Rockmount. But that she had recognized him was an indisputable fact. Was it, then, to be wondered at that she should refuse in such positive terms to permit him any longer to defray young Evan\'s expenses with money which she doubtless regarded as the proceeds of robbery on the King\'s highway?

No, he felt bound to admit that it was not to be wondered at, and that, in point of fact, no other course was open to her. And yet, knowing him now to be that which he had told her he was, she had parted from him with a cordiality in which he felt assured there was no arrière-pensèe. She had given him her hand frankly, and in her beautiful eyes he had read nothing but kindliness, with just a hint of sadness, or so he fancied, shining through it. And then, what had her last words to him been? "Let us not say good-bye, but au revoir." And this to the man who had confessed to being Captain Nightshade!

But to attempt to follow the turnings and twistings of that incomprehensible thing, a woman\'s mind, was what he made no pretensions to doing. It was enough for him that her own lips had said _au revoir_; and that a propitious fate in its own good time would bring them together again he did not permit himself to doubt.

Dare had had no thought or expectation of finding Miss Baynard at Lawn Cottage; he had not even known that she was in town; consequently the meeting was as great a surprise to him as it was to her. But what he did know, and had known all along, was that she and the soi-disant "Mr. Jack Prentice" were one and the same person. So piqued had his curiosity been by the adventure which had brought them together after such a strange fashion, that after her departure from Rockmount he had caused a watch to be set upon her movements till she had been traced back to Stanbrook. That she should prove to be the cousin of his dead friend, Dick Cortelyon, was merely one of those coincidences such as people who habitually keep their eyes open can see happening around them every day.

Dare had been quite right in his surmise as to the reasons which had actuated Nell in her refusal to allow him to contrib............