'I mean that if it is he, he must never go back to England alive. It wouldn't do, my dear fellow.'

'But he remembers nothing. He doesn't even know his own name. He doesn't know where he came from; he doesn't know what he did.'

'Yes, but if it is he, what would happen, if his memory suddenly came back? Where should we be then? It won't bear thinking about!'

'But he knows nothing. Besides, who would take his word?'

'Are you sure Luscombe has no suspicions?' and Springfield asked the question sharply.

'How can he have? and yet--oh hang it all, Springfield, it hangs like a millstone round one's neck! But mind you, I am going to have no foul play.'

Springfield gave an unpleasant laugh. 'Foul play, my son?' he said, 'we are both too deep in this business to stick at trifles. You can't afford it, neither can I.'

A few seconds later, I heard them trudging back towards St. Pinto, still talking eagerly.

I lay on the thick undergrowth for some minutes without moving. The scraps of conversation which I had heard, and which I have set down here, gave me enough food for reflection for a long time. I was not yet quite clear as to the purport of it all, but I was clear that villainy was on foot, and that not only was Paul Edgecumbe's life in danger, but my own as well, and if the truth must be told, I feared Springfield's threat more than I feared the danger which I had to meet every day as a soldier at the front in war time.

The next day I received the following note:--

'I was awfully disappointed to learn, on my return to-night, that you had looked us up in our show here, and had not found us. Why didn't you, like a decent chap, let us know you were coming? We would then have made it a point to be in. Springfield was even more disappointed than I at our absence. Can't you come over on Thursday night and have a bit of grub with us? We will both make it a point to have the entire evening at liberty, always supposing that the Boches don't pay us special attention. Let me have a line by bearer.

'Yours, with the best of regards 'GEORGE ST. MABYN.'

'Yes,' I reflected, 'I will go. But I'll have another talk with Edgecumbe first.'

On the following Thursday I again made my way to St. Pinto, where I received an almost effusive welcome from St. Mabyn and Springfield. Both expressed great vexation at being away when I had called before, and seemed to vie with each other in being friendly. In fact they overdid it. After all, I had barely known them in England, and there seemed no reason why they should act as though I were a long lost brother in France.