repressed a laugh.

An hour ago he had been lounging at peace upon the yacht, looking
forward to nothing more titillating than bed at the earliest respectable
hour. Now he was sitting with a strange lady of uncertain age in an
unlighted cottage on a lonely country road, while a howling thunderstorm
raved outside imprisoning him for nobody could say how long. In the
interval between these two extremes, he had discovered that he was a
"double," been threatened with violence, hopelessly lost Peter, and
found Mary Carstairs. Surely and in truth, a pretty active hour's work!

On the tin roof of the cottage the rain beat a wild tattoo. Within, the
silence lengthened. Under the circumstances, Varney considered reserve
on the lady's part not unnatural; but a little talk, as he viewed the
matter, would tend to help the dreary evening through.

He cleared his throat for due notice and began with a laugh.

"I was industriously chasing two men from town when the storm caught me.
You know what I mean--not drumming them out of the city, but merely
pursuing them in this general direction. I wonder if by any chance you
happened to pass them on the road?"

"N-no, I believe not."

"A very small man, very well-dressed, and a very large man, very badly
dressed, wearing a kind of curious, rococo straw hat. I know," he mused,
"that you could not have forgotten that hat. Once seen--"

"Oh!" she exclaimed with sudden evidences of interest--"do tell me--is