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sign of him.
    â€œI’m so used to there being only five of us that I never missed him,.” said Felix with compunction. “I say! Do you think we ought—”
    â€œYou’re not going to suggest cycling up that hill to look for him?” said Isabel in tones of horror. “Give him a bit longer, anyhow. Probably he found he had a puncture.”
    The others looked relieved at this simple and obvious explanation, but Lion remarked:
    â€œHe hasn’t got a mending outfit. He’d have walked down the hill and borrowed mine.”
    â€œHas he had time to walk down the hill?” asked Nora. Her moment of groundless anxiety about Isabel made her quick to fear an accident.
    Felix looked at his watch.
    â€œOh, heaps! I really think I’d better go and reconnoitre. We can’t very well go on without him, and it’s no use waiting here doing nothing.”
    â€œI don’t think I’ll come.” Isabel sat down on the grass and smiled at the worried faces of her friends. “I don’t like the look of that hill. Besides, I do really think Charles can look after himself. We lost him for half an hour the other day, if you remember, and he turned up with a bag of bulls’ eyes he’d been a mile out of his way to get, without telling anybody. He’s probably used to doing things on his own, and it hasn’t occurred to him to think of our anxiety. Not, personally, that I feel any. Give me a cigarette, Felix, before you go.”
    â€œI think you’re right, Isabel,” said Dr. Browning thoughtfully, “though we can’t very well go on and leave him to his fate, in case he is in trouble of some sort.” The doctor’s private supposition was that Sir Charles, his companions out of the way, had returned to the Tram to refresh himself with something stronger than tea. “Stop this car,” he added quickly, as a small two-seater came down the hill towards them. “They’ll be able to tell us whether they’ve passed a cyclist in distress.”
    The little grey car drew up in response to Lion’s energetic signalling, and the driver, a dark, thin-faced young man with a look of merry intelligence on his lips and eyebrows, leant over the side and said:
    â€œHullo!”
    â€œI’m sorry to bother you,” said the more formal Felix. “But did you pass a cyclist on the hill?”
    â€œI don’t think we’ve passed a cyclist since we left the last village,” said the stranger thoughtfully, looking at his companion for confirmation. “Certainly not on this hill.”
    â€œYou might have passed him in a ditch and not noticed him,” observed Lion gloomily.
    The young man laughed.
    â€œWe should certainly have seen traces of him. No, I can assure you we passed nobody. There were one or two bicycles standing outside the inn, and one or two men sitting in the porch.”
    The driver paused and looked at his companion, a rather older man with a square, wholesome, reddish face, spectacles and a thatch of fair bristling hair. Then he addressed Dr. Browning:
    â€œWould you like us to scour the countryside for you? We’re in no hurry.”
    â€œOh, no, thanks! The young man’s quite capable of looking after himself. He’ll catch us up all right. We’ll be pushing on.”
    â€œWell— au revoir ,” said the stranger with his pleasant smile, and the car slid forward.
    â€œ Au revoir ,” quoted Lion, mounting his bicycle and watching the retreating car. “Not very likely, I should say. That’s a London number. As for the missing Baronite, I expect he’s carousing merrily in the bar-parlour of the Tram.”
    Felix and Isabel laughed, and Nora, though she sternly shook her head at her young brother, exchanged a half-smile with Dr. Browning. None of them was particularly sorry to be deprived of Sir Charles’s company for a mile or two.

CHAPTER THREE
AND THEN