“If you were nice and kind and brotherly,” she said, “you would come along with me to the station and garage my car like a nice man.”

He stood irresolutely, and for a moment she went hot at the implied rebuff. And then: “I’m wasting my master’s time,” he said, “but there are occasions when pleasure must interfere with duty, and this is one of them. Do you mind if I drive? I have no faith in women drivers.”

“You are very rude,” she said, but nevertheless moved aside to let him take the wheel.

“How is Harry this morning?”

“Fine,” he said sardonically. And then, heartily ashamed of himself: “Harry is trying a new patent medicine. You’ve never been in his bedroom? That is an indelicate question to ask, but have you?”

She shook her head, the hint of laughter in her eyes.

“There are about eight hundred and forty-five varieties of patent medicines in Harry’s bedroom,” he said grimly. “Once every three months we have a spring-clean and chuck ’em out! Really there isn’t very much wrong with Harry, and if he did not read patent medicine advertisements he would be a happier man. Just now he’s trying something for his nerves, and if there’s anything left in the bottle at the end of the week I shall take it myself.”

“Poor Harry!” she said softly.

“Yes, I’m a brute to grouse,” he said, almost gruffly, and seemed to imply in some subtle fashion that she was a provocative party to his brutality.

It occurred to her as strange that he never spoke about the time when she would be mistress of Fossaway Manor. It would have been natural in him to say, “When you’re married I hope you’ll cure Harry of that nonsense,” but he had made no such reference. That was the strange thing about Dick, that he never even suggested or hinted of a coming time when she would be Countess of Chelford. In one way she was glad he did not – especially now.

They wound slowly through the leafy lanes, passed a little wood, all olive, russet and purple with the decay of autumn, and came to the station ten minutes ahead of time.

“You have had no further visit from your Black Abbot?” she asked, as they strolled on to the station platform.

He shook his head.

“No; the police came last night to make inquiries. I don’t suppose it will go much farther. You read about it in the newspaper, of course?”

She shook her head.

“Servants talk,” she said.

“I really don’t believe in this Black Abbot,” he went on. “It is queer that Harry is scared of this spook. He never goes outside the house when the old Abbot is reported in the neighbourhood.”

“You don’t believe either?”

He pursed his lips.

“When I see a ghost I shall believe it. Until then I am politely sceptical.”