A dog sprang up with a growl, and in the light of the fire that burned on the hearth, a man sitting at the rough-hewn table lifted a haggard face from his arms and each recognized the other.
The ghost was gone now before firelight and human presence, and Hugh, with a loud laugh of tipsy incredulity, stood staring at the man before him.
"Harry Sanderson!" he cried. "By the great horn spoon!" His shifty eyes surveyed the other's figure--the corduroys, the high laced boots, the soft blue flannel shirt. "Not exactly in purple and fine linen," he said--the impudent swagger of intoxication had slipped over him again, and his boisterous laugh broke with a hiccough. "I thought the gospel game was about played out that night in the chapel. And now you are willing to take a hint from the prodigal. How did you find my nest? And perhaps you can tell me who has been making himself so infernally at home here lately?"
Hugh's glance, that had been wavering about the neat interior, returned to Harry, and knowledge and anger leaped into it. "So it was you, was it? You are the one who has been trying his hand as a claim-jumper!" He lurched toward the table and leaned upon it. "I've always heard that the devil took care of his own. The runaway rector stumbles on my manor, and with his usual luck--'Satan's luck' we called it at college--steps in just in time to strike it rich!"
He stretched his hand suddenly and caught a tiny object that glittered against Harry's coat--the little gold cross, which the other had tied to his watch-guard. The thong snapped and Hugh sent the pendant rattling across the doorway.
"You were something of a howling swell as a parson," he said insolently, "but you don't need the jewelry now!"
Harry Sanderson's eyes had not left Hugh's face; he was thinking swiftly. The bolt from the blue had been so recent that this sudden apparition seemed a natural concomitant of the situation. Only the problem was no longer imminent; it was upon him. Jessica was not for him--he had accepted that. Though the clock might not turn backward, this man must stand between them. Yet his presence now in the predicament was intolerable. This drunken, criminal maligner had it in his power to precipitate the climax for her in a coarse and brutal _exposé_. Hugh had no idea of the true tangle, else he had not been seen in the town. But if not to-night, then to-morrow! Harry's heart turned cold within him. If he could eliminate Hugh from the problem till he could see his way!