"Fairly young--a married couple."

"No," said the barmaid, a talkative person of ample dimensions.
"There's no married couples stopping here. But there's a Mr. and

Miss BEAUMONT." She spelt it for precision. "Sure you've got the
name right, young man?"

"Quite," said Mr. Hoopdriver.
"Beaumont there is, but no one of the name of-- What was the name

you gave?"
"Bowlong," said Mr. Hoopdriver.

"No, there ain't no Bowlong," said the barmaid, taking up a
glasscloth and a drying tumbler and beginning to polish the

latter. "First off, I thought you might be asking for Beaumont--
the names being similar. Were you expecting them on bicycles?"

"Yes--they said they MIGHT be in Midhurst tonight."
"P'raps they'll come presently. Beaumont's here, but no Bowlong.

Sure that Beaumont ain't the name?"
"Certain," said Mr. Hoopdriver.

"It's curious the names being so alike. I thought p'raps--"
And so they conversed at some length, Mr. Hoopdriver delighted to

find his horriblesuspicion disposed of. The barmaid having
listened awhile at the staircase volunteered some particulars of

the young couple upstairs. Her modesty was much impressed by the
young lady's costume, so she intimated, and Mr. Hoopdriver

whispered the badinage natural to the occasion, at which she was
coquettishly shocked. "There'll be no knowing which is which, in

a year or two," said the barmaid. "And her manner too! She got
off her machine and give it 'im to stick up against the kerb, and

in she marched. 'I and my brother,' says she, 'want to stop here
to-night. My brother doesn't mind what kind of room 'e 'as, but I

want a room with a good view, if there's one to be got,' says
she. He comes hurrying in after and looks at her. 'I've settled

the rooms,' she says, and 'e says 'damn!' just like that. I can
fancy my brother letting me boss the show like that."

"I dessay you do," said Mr. Hoopdriver, "if the truth was known."
The barmaid looked down, smiled and shook her head, put down the

tumbler, polished, and took up another that had been draining,
and shook the drops of water into her little zinc sink.

"She'll be a nice little lot to marry," said the barmaid. "She'll
be wearing the--well, b-dashes, as the sayin' is. I can't think

what girls is comin' to."
This depreciation of the Young Lady in Grey was hardly to

Hoopdriver's taste.
"Fashion," said he, taking up his change. "Fashion is all the go

with you ladies--and always was. You'll be wearing 'em yourself
before a couple of years is out."

"Nice they'd look on my figger," said the barmaid, with a titter.
"No--I ain't one of your fashionable sort. Gracious no! I

shouldn't feel as if I'd anything on me, not more than if I'd
forgot-- Well, there! I'm talking." She put down the glass

abruptly. "I dessay I'm old fashioned," she said, and walked
humming down the bar.

"Not you," said Mr. Hoopdriver. He waited until he caught her
eye, then with his native courtesy smiled, raised his cap, and

wished her good evening.
XIX

Then Mr. Hoopdriver returned to the little room with the
lead-framed windows where he had dined, and where the bed was now

comfortably made, sat down on the box under the window, stared at
the moon rising on the shining vicarage roof, and tried to

collect his thoughts. How they whirled at first! It was past ten,
and most of Midhurst was tucked away in bed, some one up the

street was learning the violin, at rare intervals a belated
inhabitant hurried home and woke the echoes, and a corncrake kept

up a busy churning in the vicarage garden. The sky was deep blue,
with a still luminous afterglow along the hlack edge of the hill,

and the white moon overhead, save for a couple of yellow stars,
had the sky to herself.

At first his thoughts were kinetic, of deeds and not
relationships. There was this malefactor, and his victim, and it

had fallen on Mr. Hoopdriver to take a hand in the game. HE was
married. Did she know he was married? Never for a moment did a

thought of evil concerning her cross Hoopdriver's mind. Simple-
minded people see questions of morals so much better than

superior persons--who have read and thought themselves complex to
impotence. He had heard her voice, seen the frank light in her

eyes, and she had been weeping--that sufficed. The rights of the
case he hadn't properly grasped. But he would. And that smirking-

-well, swine was the mildest for him. He recalled the exceedingly
unpleasant incident of the railway bridge. "Thin we won't detain

yer, thenks," said Mr. Hoopdriver, aloud, in a strange,
unnatural, contemptible voice, supposed to represent that of

Bechamel. "Oh, the BEGGAR! I'll be level with him yet. He's
afraid of us detectives--that I'll SWEAR." (If Mrs. Wardor should

chance to be on the other side of the door within earshot, well
and good.)

For a space he meditated chastisements and revenges, physical
impossibilities for the most part,--Bechamel staggering headlong

from the impact of Mr. Hoopdriver's large, but, to tell the
truth, ill supported fist, Bechamel's five feet nine of height

lifted from the ground and quivering under a vigorously" target="_blank" title="ad.精力旺盛地；健壮地">vigorously applied
horsewhip. So pleasant was such dreaming, that Mr. Hoopdriver's

peaked face under the moonlight was transfigured. One might have
paired him with that well-known and universally admired triumph,

'The Soul's Awakening,' so sweet was his ecstasy. And presently
with his thirst for revenge glutted by six or seven violent

assaults, a duel and two vigorous murders, his mind came round to
the Young Lady in Grey again.

She was a plucky one too. He went over the incident the barmaid
at the Angel had described to him. His thoughts ceased to be a

torrent, smoothed down to a mirror in which she was reflected
with infiniteclearness and detail. He'd never met anything like

her before. Fancy that bolster of a barmaid being dressed in that
way! He whuffed a contemptuous laugh. He compared her colour, her

vigour, her voice, with the Young Ladies in Business with whom
his lot had been cast. Even in tears she was beautiful, more

beautiful indeed to him, for it made her seem softer and weaker,
more accessible. And such weeping as he had seen before had been

so much a matter of damp white faces, red noses, and hair coming
out of curl. Your draper's assistant becomes something of a judge

of weeping, because weeping is the custom of all Young Ladies in
Business, when for any reason their services are dispensed with.

She could weep--and (by Gosh!) she could smile. HE knew that, and
reverting to actingabruptly, he smiled confidentially at the

puckered pallor of the moon.
It is difficult to say how long Mr. Hoopdriver's pensiveness

lasted. It seemed a long time before his thoughts of action
returned. Then he remembered he was a 'watcher'; that to-morrow

he must be busy. It would be in character to make notes, and he
pulled out his little note-book. With that in hand he fell

a-thinking again. Would that chap tell her the 'tecks were after
them? If so, would she be as anxious to get away as HE was? He

must be on the alert. If possible he must speak to her. Just a
significant word, "Your friend--trust me!"--It occurred to him

that to-morrow these fugitives might rise early to escape. At
that he thought of the time and found it was half-past eleven.

"Lord!" said he, "I must see that I wake." He yawned and rose.
The blind was up, and he pulled back the little chintz curtains

to let the sunlight strike across to the bed, hung his watch
within good view of his pillow, on a nail that supported a

kettle-holder, and sat down on his bed to undress. He lay awake
for a little while thinking of the wonderful possibilities of the