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slowly on, his eyes lifted towards the lamp upon the distant, bare hillside that shone out so plainly now the evening shadows had fallen and night had come.

CHAPTER III
BLIND BEGGAR
    From the spot where Bobby had left the Citry-sur-l’eau schoolmaster it had seemed as if the Pépin Mill, the scene of the Polthwaite tragedy, stood not far from the road, between it and the stream that ran the length of the valley. In actual fact, as a result of bends both in the road and in the course of the stream, the mill stood on the farther bank, about a quarter of a mile from both it and the road which here nearly met each other. A rough track, little used apparently, so rough indeed as hardly to deserve the name even of path, branched off nearly at right angles from the road, crossed the little stream here only a foot or two deep by a somewhat unsteady plank bridge, and went on to the mill. As the bridge would clearly not carry wheeled traffic, Bobby supposed there must be other means of access. In this he was wrong. The mill had not been used as a mill for at least a century and had been nearly a ruin before its present owner had had the idea of fitting it up to be let to visitors in the holiday season. In former days there had probably been a more substantial bridge, or another road now ploughed up and cultivated, but to-day everything destined for delivery at the mill had to be carried across by hand.
    The mill itself was surrounded by trees. A windscreen of poplars sheltered it from the current of wind that often blew down the valley through a gap in the hills to the south-west and that in times past had been the reason for the selection of this site. North of the building again were more trees, chiefly chestnuts and oaks, and to the east lay an orchard, though one that did not look as though it had ever been very fruitful. Through a gap in this sheltering circle of trees, Bobby, from where he stood, had a clear view of the mill. He could see there was a light, so the tenants were evidently at home.
    A little strange, he thought, that the mill had been occupied so soon and by English people. Generally there is a tendency to avoid the scene of a recent tragedy. It put an end anyhow to the idea Lady Markham had suggested that he should rent the mill himself. Unless, of course, Mr. and Mrs. Williams were only making a very brief stay. He found himself wondering who they might be as he walked slowly across the rickety little plank bridge. Nearer the mill he halted in the shadow of some trees. He wondered if some time he might venture to call. They were English and visitors, like himself, and he could make the excuse that he wished to sketch the mill. All the time the thought was running in his mind as he stood there watching this aloof and solitary building, half hidden in its encircling trees, where an old woman had met a death still unexplained, that there was something strange in this prompt appearance on the scene of other English people.
    Something doubtful, too, and menacing in the long, heavy shadows that lay all around, in the silence and the solitude, as though the mill stood there in the circle of its trees withdrawn and apart from the common healthy intercourse of everyday life, as though it lurked and crouched there in the night for purposes hidden from the day.
    He was growing fanciful, he told himself, and then he heard footsteps, firm and confident steps, as of one who knew the way and his purpose and his destination. Bobby drew back into the shadows further still. He did not wish his interest in the mill to be remarked. The footsteps drew nearer. A tall and bulky form became dimly visible. Bobby made out that it was a man, walking fast and swinging a stick in his hand. He aimed blows at the shrubs and plants he passed as though to strike them down gave him a certain pleasure. He swung by at the same brisk pace without noticing Bobby and went on towards the mill. The Mr. Williams who was the new tenant, Bobby