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But almost at the same moment another face looked over the low hedge–the face of a young girl in a blue sun-bonnet: and Mr. Molesworth put out a hand to the gate to steady himself.

The girl–she had heard his laugh, perhaps–gazed down at him with a frank curiosity. Her eyes were honest, clear, untroubled: they were also extremely beautiful eyes: and they were more. As Mr. Molesworth to his last day was prepared to take oath, here were the very eyes, as here was the very face and here the very form, of the Margaret whom he had suffered for, and suffered to be lost to him, twenty-five years ago. It was Margaret, and she had not aged one day.

In Margaret’s voice, too, seeing that he made no motion to enter, she spoke down to him across the hedge.

“Are you a friend, sir, of the gentleman that was here just now?”

“Sir John Crang?” Mr. Molesworth just managed to command his voice.

“I don’t know his name, sir. But he left his cigar-case behind. I found it on the settle five minutes after he had gone, and ran out to search for him. . . .”

Mr. Molesworth opened the gate and held out a hand for the case. Yes: he recognised it. It bore Sir John’s monogram in silver.

“I will give it to him,” he said. Without exactly knowing why, he followed her into the inn-kitchen. Yes, he would take a pint of her ale. “The home-brewed?” Yes, certainly, the home-brewed.

She brought it in a pewter tankard, exquisitely polished. The polish of it caught and cast back the sunlight in prismatic circles on the scoured deal table. The girl–Margaret–stood for a moment in the fuller sunlight by the window, lingering there to pick a dead leaf from a geranium on the ledge.

“Which way did Sir John go?”

“I thought he took the turning along the shore; but I didn’t notice particularly which way he went. He said he had come down the valley, and I took it for granted he would be going on.”

Mr. Molesworth drank his beer and stood up. “There are only two ways, then, out of this valley?”

“Thank you, sir–” As he paid her she dropped a small curtsey–“Yes, only two ways–up the valley or along the shore. The road up the valley leads to the railway station.”

“By the way, there was an accident at the station this morning?”

“Indeed, sir?” Her beautiful eyes grew round. “Nothing serious, I hope?”

“It might have been a very nasty one indeed,” said Mr. Molesworth, and paused. “I think I’ll take a look along the shore before returning. I don’t want to miss my friend, if I can help it.”

“You can see right along it from the rock beyond the garden,” said the girl, and Mr. Molesworth went out.

As he reached the spit of rock, the sunlight playing down the waters of the creek dazzled him for a moment. Rubbing his eyes, he saw, about two hundred yards along the foreshore, a boat grounded, and two figures beside it on the beach: and either his sight was playing him a trick or these two were struggling together.

He ran towards them. Almost as he started, in one of the figures he recognised Sir John. The other had him by the shoulders, and seemed to be dragging him by main force towards the boat. Mr. Molesworth shouted as he rushed up to the fray. The assailant turned–turned with a loud hissing sound–and, releasing Sir John, swung up a hand with something in it that flashed in the sun as he struck at the newcomer: and as Mr. Molesworth fell, he saw a fierce brown face and a cage of white, gleaming teeth bared in a savage grin. . . .