"I thought as much," exclaimed Dunn. "May I ask you another question?"

She nodded.

"May I smoke?"

She nodded again with a touch of impatience.

He took a cigarette from his pocket and put it inside his mouth andlighted a match, but the match, when he had lighted it, he used toput light to a scrap of folded paper with writing on it, like a note.

This piece of paper he used to light his cigarette with and when hehad done so he watched the paper burn to an ash, not dropping it tothe ground till the little flame stung his fingers.

The ash that had fallen he ground into the path where they stoodwith the heel of his boot.

"What have you burned there?" she asked, as if she suspected it wassomething of importance he had destroyed.

In fact it was the note that had fallen from dead Harold Clive's handwherein Ella had asked him to meet her at the oak where he had methis death.