this habit was a certain classification of detail. He picked up little
scraps of evidence here and there, and these were methodically
pigeon-holed away, as a lawyer stores up the correspondence of his
clients.

With regard to Frederick Farrar, Vellacott had only made one note. The
squire of St. Mary Eastern was apparently very similar to his fellows.
He was an ordinary young British squire with a knowledge of horses and a
highly-developed fancy for smart riding-breeches and long boots. He had
probably received a fair education, but this had ceased when he closed
his last school-book. The seeds of knowledge had been sown, but they
lacked moisture and had failed to grow. He was good-natured, plucky in a
hard-headed British way, and gentlemanly. In all this there was nothing
exceptional--nothing to take note of--and Vellacott only remembered the
limpness of Frederick Farrar's grasp. He thought of this too
persistently and magnified it. And this being the only mental note made,
was rather hard on the young squire of St. Mary Eastern.

Vellacott thought of these things while he dressed, he thought of them
intermittently during the unsettled, noisy, country breakfast, and when
he found himself walking beside the moat with Hilda later on he was
still thinking of them.

They had not yet gathered into their hands the threads which had been
broken years before. At times they hit upon a topic of some slight
common interest, but something hovered in the air between them. Hilda
was gay, as she had always been, in a gentle, almost purring way; but a
certain constrained silence made itself felt at times, and they were
both intensely conscious of it.