"How are you, Molly?"

"Quite well, thank you, Jimmy."

A pause.

"You're looking very well."

"I'm feeling very well. How are you?"

"Quite well, thanks. Very well, indeed"

Another pause.

And then their eyes met, and at the same moment they burst out laughing.

"Your manners are _beautiful_, Jimmy. And I'm so glad you're so well! What an extraordinary thing us meeting like this. I thought you were in New York."

"I thought you were. You haven't altered a bit, Molly."

"Nor have you. How queer this is! I can't understand it."

"Nor can I. I don't want to. I'm satisfied without. Do you know before I met you I was just thinking I hadn't a single friend in this country. I'm on my way to stay with a man I've only known a few days, and his people, whom I don't know at all, and a bunch of other guests, whom I've never heard of, and his uncle, who's a sort of human icicle, and his aunt, who makes you feel like thirty cents directly she starts to talk to you, and the family watchdog, who will probably bite me. But now! You must live near here or you wouldn't be chasing horses about this road."

"I live at a place called Corven Abbey."

"What Corven Abbey? Why, that's where I'm going."

"Jimmy! Oh, I see. You're Spennie's friend. But where is Spennie?"

"At the abbey by now. He went in the auto with his uncle and aunt."

"How did you meet Spennie?"

"Oh, I did a very trifling Good Samaritan act, for which he was unduly grateful, and he adopted me from that moment."

"How long have you been living in England, then? I never dreamed of you being here."

"I've been on this side about a week. If you want my history in a nutshell, it's this. Rich uncle. Poor nephew. Deceased uncle. Rich nephew. I'm a man with money now. Lots of money."

"How nice for you, Jimmy. Father came into money, too. That's how I come to be over here. I wish you and father had got on better together."

"Your father, my dear Molly, has a manner with people he is not fond of which purists might call slightly abrupt. Perhaps things will be different, now."

The horse gave a sudden whinny.

"I wish you wouldn't do that sort of thing without warning," said Jimmy to it plaintively.

"He knows he's near home, and he knows it's his dinner time. There, now you can see the abbey. How do you like it?"

They had reached a point in the road where the fields to the right sloped sharply downward. A few hundred yards away, backed by woods, stood the beautiful home which ex-Policeman McEachern had caused to be builded for him. The setting sun lit up the waters of the lake. No figures were to be seen moving in the grounds. The place resembled a palace of sleep.