Dare left Slumberleigh Hall early the following morning, and drove up to the rectory on his way to Vandon.

After being closeted with Mr.Alwynn in the study for a short time, they both came out and drove away together.

Ruth, invisible in her own room with a headache, her only means of defence against Mrs.Alwynn's society, heard the coming and the going, and was not far wrong in her surmise that Dare had come to beg Mr.Alwynn to accompany him to Vandon--being afraid to face alone the mysterious enemy intrenched there.
No conversation was possible in the dog-cart, with the groom on the back seat thirsting to hear any particulars of the news which had spread like wildfire from Vandon throughout the whole village the previous afternoon, and which was already miraculously flying from house to house in Slumberleigh this morning, as things discreditable do fly among a Christian population, which perhaps "thinks no evil," but repeats it nevertheless.
There was not a servant in Dare's modest establishment who was not on the lookout for him on his return.

The gardener happened to be tying up a plant near the front door; the house-maids were watching unobserved from an upper casement; the portly form of Mrs.Smith, the house-keeper, was seen to glide from one of the unused bedroom windows; the butler must have been waiting in the hall, so prompt was his appearance when the dog-cart drew up before the door.
Another pair of keen black eyes was watching too, peering out through the chinks between the lowered Venetian blinds in the drawing-room; was observing Dare intently as he got out, and then resting anxiously on his companion.

Then the owner of the eyes slipped away from the window, and went back noiselessly to the fire.
Dare ordered the dog-cart to remain at the door, flung down his hat on the hall-table, and, turning to the servant who was busying himself in folding his coat, said, sharply, "Where is the--the person who arrived here yesterday ?" The man replied that "she" was in the drawing-room.