It was next morning, whilst Jane was sorting and arranging the papers for the library table, that she caught sight of Henry’s first message. She very nearly missed it, for the fold of the paper cut right across the agony column, and what caught her eye was the one word that passed as a signature, “Thursday.” It startled her so much that she dropped the paper, and, in snatching at it, knocked over a pile of magazines.  
Lady Heritage looked over her shoulder with a frown, tapped with her foot, and then went on with her writing in a silence that uttered more than words could have done.
 
Jane picked everything up as silently as possible. As she put the papers on the table, she laid The Times out flat, and, bending over it, read the message:
 
“You will receive a letter from me. Trust the bearer. Thursday.”
 
She put all the papers in their places, and went to her writing-table with an intense to be alone, to be able to think what this might mean, and to wonder who—who would be the bearer of Henry’s letter. She hoped that Lady Heritage would have business in the laboratories, and whilst these thoughts, and hopes, and wonderings filled her mind, she had to write neat and legible replies to the inexhaustible number of persons who desired Lady Heritage to open , speak at public meetings, to an indefinite number of charities, or contribute to the writer’s support.
 
 
When, at last, she was alone in her own room, she was with excitement. At any moment some one, some unknown friend and ally, might present himself. It was exciting, but, she thought, rather .
 
For instance, supposing Henry’s letter came, by any mischance, into the wrong hands—and letters were mislaid and stolen sometimes—what a dreadful chapter of misfortunes might ensue. She frowned, and that Henry had been rash.
 
It was with a pleasant feeling of superiority that she put on her hat and went out into the garden to pick tulips.
 
The weather had changed in the night, and it was hot and sunny, with the sudden dazzling heat of mid-April. In the walled garden the south border was full of violet-scented yellow tulips, each looking at this new hot sun with a jet-black eye. A sheet of forget-me-nots repeated the sheer blue of the sky.
 
Jane picked an armful of tulips and a sheaf of leopard’s bane. speaking, she should then have gone in to put the flowers in water for the of the Yellow Drawing-Room. Instead, she made her way to the farthest corner of the garden and .
 
At first she looked at the flowers, but after a while her fell.
 
 
Jane has never admitted that she went to sleep, but, if she was thinking with her eyes shut, her thoughts must have been of an extremely nature, for it is certain that she heard neither the opening nor the shutting of a door in the wall beside her. She did feel a shadow pass between herself and the sun, and opening her eyes quickly she saw beside her the very man from whom she had fled in terror yesterday.
 
The sunlight fell from upon him, showing the shabby clothes, the tall, stooping figure, the grizzled beard, and that disfiguring scar.
 
With a great start Jane attempted to rise, only to discover that a wheelbarrow may make a very comfortable chair, but that it is difficult to get out of in a hurry. To her horror the man, George Patterson, took her firmly by the wrist and pulled her to her feet. She shrank intensely from his touch, received an impression of unusual strength, and then, to her overwhelming surprise, she heard him say in a low, well-bred voice, “I have a letter for you, Miss Smith.”
 
“Oh, !” said Jane—“oh, please, hush!”
 
“All right, I won’t do it again. Look here, I want to say a few words to you, but we had better not be seen together. Here’s your letter. Stay where you are for five minutes, and then come down to the potting-shed. Don’t come in; stay by the door and tie your shoe-lace.”
 
He went off with his dragging step, and left Jane dumb. There was a folded note in her hand, and in her mind so intense a shock of surprise as to rob her very thoughts of expression.
 
After what seemed like a long paralysed month, she opened the note which bore no address, and read, pencilled in Henry’s clear and very hand, “The bearer is trustworthy.—H. L. M.”
 
 
When she had looked so long at Henry’s initials that they had and cleared again, not once but many times, she walked mechanically down the path until she came to the shed. Beside it was a barrel full of rain-water. Into this she dipped Henry’s note, made sure that the words were totally , a hole in the border, and covered the paper with earth. Then at the potting-shed door she knelt and became occupied with her shoe-lace.
 
“Henry saw me after he saw you,” said George Patterson’s voice. “He thought it might be a comfort to you to know there is a friend on the spot; but I’m afraid I gave you a fright yesterday.”
 
“You did,” said Jane, “but I don’t know why. I was a perfect fool, and I ran right into Mr. Ember’s arms.”
 
“Did you tell him what frightened you?” said Patterson quickly.
 
“No, I wasn’t quite such a fool as that. Please, who are you?”
 
“My name here is George Patterson. I’m a friend of Henry’s. If you want me, I’m here.”
 
“If I want you,” said Jane, “how am I to get at you?”
 
Mr. Patterson considered.
 
“There’s a wide sill inside your window.” (And how on earth do you know that? thought Jane.) “If you put a big jar of, say, those yellow tulips there, I’ll know you want to speak to me, and I’ll come here to this potting-shed as soon as I can. You know they keep us pretty busy with roll-calls and things of that sort. I only got back yesterday by the skin of my teeth—I had to bolt.”
 
“Did you—you didn’t pass me.”
 
“No, I didn’t pass you.” There was just a trace of amusement in Mr. Patterson’s voice.
 
 
Jane pulled her shoe-lace , and began to tie it all over again.
 
“Hush!” she said very quick and low. “Some one is coming.”
 
Just where the path ended, not half a dozen yards away, the red-brick wall was pierced by a door. Two round, rose-bushes, all tiny green leaf and sharp brown prickle, grew like large pin-cushions on either side of the interrupted border. Bright pink nectarine buds shone against the brick like coral studs. The ash-coloured door, rough and sun-blistered, was opening slowly, and into the garden came Raymond Heritage, pushing the door with one hand and holding a basket of bulbs in the other. She was looking back over her shoulder, at............