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home park at Prior’s Tarrant lay bathed in the gentle glow of a waning moon, but the hoary façade of the mansion itself, and the terrace that skirted it, were in shadow. Up and down in front of the long row of windows a red spark passed and repassed with monotonous regularity—the light of General Sadgrove’s cigar as he waited in growing impatience for the coming of the Duke.

After his social duties of the afternoon he had paid a hurried visit to Beaumanoir House to arrange for the Duke’s departure in company with his new secretary, and then, armed with credentials from the Duke and heralded by a preparatory telegram, he had proceeded to the Hertfordshire seat by an earlier train. He had good reasons for traveling separately. And now the carriage which he had sent to the little wayside station of Tarrant Road two miles off was overdue, and the General was beginning to chafe.