His intention had been to be absent a year at the most, but a combination of unforeseen circumstances prevented his leaving the mines for nearly five. At the end of that time, however, his memory of his wrongs and his craving for revenge were quite as keen as on that memorable night when he had stood by John Ferrier’s grave. Disguised, and under an assumed name, he returned to Salt Lake City, careless what became of his own life, as long as he obtained what he knew to be justice. There he found evil tidings awaiting him. There had been a schism among the Chosen People a few months before, some of the younger members of the Church having rebelled against the authority of the Elders, and the result had been the secession of a certain number of the malcontents, who had left Utah and become Gentiles. Among these had been Drebber and Stangerson; and no one knew whither they had gone. Rumour reported that Drebber had managed to convert a large part of his property into money, and that he had departed a wealthy man, while his companion, Stangerson, was comparatively poor. There was no clue at all, however, as to their whereabouts.

Many a man, however vindictive, would have abandoned all thought of revenge in the the face of such a difficulty, but Jefferson Hope never faltered for a moment. With the small competence he possessed, eked out by such employment as he could pick up, he travelled from town to town through the United States in quest of his enemies. Year passed into year, his black hair turned grizzled, but still he wandered on, a human bloodhound, with his mind wholly set upon the one object to which he had devoted his life. At last his perseverance was rewarded. It was but a glance of a face in a window, but that one glance told him that Cleveland in Ohio possessed the men whom he was in pursuit of. He returned to his miserable lodgings with his plan of vengeance all arranged. It chanced, however, that Drebber, looking from his window, had recognized the vagrant in the street, and had read murder in his eyes. He hurried before a justice of the peace accompanied by Stangerson, who had become his private secretary, and represented to him that they were in danger of their lives from the jealousy and hatred of an old rival. That evening Jefferson Hope was taken into custody, and not being able to find sureties, was detained for some weeks. When at last he was liberated it was only to find that Drebber’s house was deserted, and that he and his secretary had departed for Europe.

Again the avenger had been foiled, and again his concentrated hatred urged him to continue the pursuit. Funds were wanting, however, and for some time he had to return to work, saving every dollar for his approaching journey. At last, having collected enough to keep life in him, he departed for Europe, and tracked his enemies from city to city, working his way in any menial capacity, but never overtaking the fugitives. When he reached St. Petersburg, they had departed for Paris; and when he followed them there, he learned that they had just set off for Copenhagen. At the Danish capital he was again a few days late, for they had journeyed on to London, where he at last succeeded in running them to earth. As to what occurred there, we cannot do better than quote the old hunter’s own account, as duly recorded in Dr. Watson‘s Journal, to which we are already under such obligations.

‘I haven’t any crayons,’ said Ursula.

‘There will be some somewhere—red and yellow, that’s all you want.’

Ursula sent out a boy on a quest.

‘It will make the books untidy,’ she said to Birkin, flushing deeply.

‘Not very,’ he said. ‘You must mark in these things obviously. It’s the fact you want to emphasise, not the subjective impression to record. What’s the fact?—red little spiky stigmas of the female flower, dangling yellow male catkin, yellow pollen flying from one to the other. Make a pictorial record of the fact, as a child does when drawing a face—two eyes, one nose, mouth with teeth—so—’ And he drew a figure on the blackboard.

At that moment another vision was seen through the glass panels of the door. It was Hermione Roddice. Birkin went and opened to her.

‘I saw your car,’ she said to him. ‘Do you mind my coming to find you? I wanted to see you when you were on duty.’

She looked at him for a long time, intimate and playful, then she gave a short little laugh. And then only she turned to Ursula, who, with all the class, had been watching the little scene between the lovers.

‘How do you do, Miss Brangwen,’ sang Hermione, in her low, odd, singing fashion, that sounded almost as if she were poking fun. ‘Do you mind my coming in?’

Her grey, almost sardonic eyes rested all the while on Ursula, as if summing her up.

‘Oh no,’ said Ursula.

‘Are you SURE?’ repeated Hermione, with complete sang froid, and an odd, half–bullying effrontery.

‘Oh no, I like it awfully,’ laughed Ursula, a little bit excited and bewildered, because Hermione seemed to be compelling her, coming very close to her, as if intimate with her; and yet, how could she be intimate?

This was the answer Hermione wanted. She turned satisfied to Birkin.

‘What are you doing?’ she sang, in her casual, inquisitive fashion.

‘Catkins,’ he replied.

‘Really!’ she said. ‘And what do you learn about them?’ She spoke all the while in a mocking, half teasing fashion, as if making game of the whole business. She picked up a twig of the catkin, piqued by Birkin’s attention to it.

She was a strange figure in the class–room, wearing a large, old cloak of greenish cloth, on which was a raised pattern of dull gold. The high collar, and the inside of the cloak, was lined with dark fur. Beneath she had a dress of fine lavender–coloured cloth, trimmed with fur, and her hat was close–fitting, made of fur and of the dull, green–and–gold figured stuff. She was tall and strange, she looked as if she had come out of some new, bizarre picture.

‘Do you know the little red ovary flowers, that produce the nuts? Have you ever noticed them?’ he asked her. And he came close and pointed them out to her, on the sprig she held.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘What are they?’