get through hedges. The sound of her faint spinster-like snigger came
to me as I stood panting, and roused me like a bugle. The next moment
I too had plunged into the hedge.

I was in the middle of it, very hot, tired, and dirty, when from the
other side I heard a sudden shout of "Mark over! Bird to the right!"
and the next moment I found myself emerging with a black face and
tottering knees on the gravel path of a private garden. Beyond the
path was a croquet lawn, and on this lawn I perceived, as through a
glass darkly, three figures. The mist cleared from my eyes, and I
recognised two of them.

One was the middle-aged Irishman who had travelled down with us in the
train. The other was his blue-eyed daughter.

The third member of the party was a man, a stranger to me. By some
miracle of adroitness he had captured Aunt Elizabeth, and was holding
her in spite of her protests in a workmanlike manner behind the wings.



CHAPTER VII

THE ENTENTE CORDIALE IS SEALED

There are moments and moments. The present one belonged to the more
painful variety.

Even to my exhausted mind it was plain that there was a need here for
explanations. An Irishman's croquet-lawn is his castle, and strangers