Nobody

His hesitation was brief. Satisfied, he swung round to the stairway, in another instant had vanished. Only light footfalls on the wooden steps told of a steady descent, and at the same time furnished assurance that Sally had not victimised herself with a waking vision bred of her infatuation.

The footfalls, not loud at best, had become inaudible before she found courage to approach the platform. With infinite pains to avoid a sound, she peered over the edge of its stone parapet.

For a little the gulf swam giddily beneath her who was never quite easy at any unusual height. But she set herself with determination to master this weakness and presently was able to examine the beach with a clear vision.

It was only partially shadowed by the cliffs, but that shadow was dense, and outside it nothing stirred. None the less, after a time she was able to discern Lyttleton's figure kneeling on the sands at the immediate foot of the cliff, a hundred feet or so to one side of the steps. And while she watched he rose, stood for a little staring out to sea, wasted a number of matches lighting a cigarette (which seemed curious, in view of the unbroken calm) and moved on out of sight beyond a shoulder of stone.

She waited fully ten minutes; but he did not reappear.

Then, retreating to her seat on the stone wall, she waited as long again-still no sign of Lyttleton.

But something else marked that second period of waiting that intrigued her no less than the mysterious actions of her beloved-this although she could imagine no link between the two.

Some freak of chance drew her attention to a small, dark shape, with one staring red eye, that was stealing quietly across the Sound in the middle distance-of indefinite contour against the darkening waters, but undoubtedly a motor-boat, since there was no wind to drive any sailing vessel at its pace, or indeed at any pace at all.

While she watched it incuriously it came to a dead pause, and so remained for several minutes. Then, deliberately, with infinitely sardonic effect, it winked its single eye of red at her-winked portentously three times.

She made nothing of that, and in her profound ignorance of all things nautical might have considered it some curious bit of sea etiquette had she not, the next instant, caught out of the corner of her eye the sudden glow of a window lighted in the second story of Gosnold House.

As she turned in surprise the light went out. A pause of perhaps twenty seconds ensued. Then the window shone out again-one in the left wing, the wing at the end of which her bedchamber was located. But when she essayed to reckon the rooms between it and her own it turned black again, and after another twenty seconds once more shone out and once more was lightless.

After this it continued stubbornly dark, and by the time Sally gave up trying to determine precisely which window it had been, and turned her gaze seaward again, the boat had vanished. Its lights, at least, were no longer visible, and it was many minutes before the girl succeeded in locating the blur it made on the face of the waters. It seemed to be moving, but the distance was so great that she could not be sure which way.

A signal-yes, obviously; but between whom and for what purpose?

Who was on that boat? And who the tenant of that room of the flashing window? She was satisfied that the latter was one of a row of six windows to three rooms occupied by Mrs. Standish, Mrs. Artemas, and a pretty young widow who had arrived late Saturday afternoon and whose name Sally had yet to learn.

She pondered it all with ever-deepening perplexity until a change came over the night-a wind stirred, leaves rattled, boughs soughed plaintively, the waters wakened and filled the void of silence with soft clashing. Then, shivering, Sally rose and crept back toward the house.

But when she paused on the edge of the last shadow, preparatory to the dash across the moonlit space to the door, a step sounded beside her, a hand caught at her cloak.

She started back with a stifled cry.

"Steady!" Lyttleton's voice counselled her guardedly. "Don't make a row! Blessed if it ain't Miss Manwaring!"

CHAPTER IX

PICAROON

Plucking peremptorily at her cloak, Lyttleton drew the girl to him and, seizing her hand, without further ceremony dragged her round the clump of shrubbery to a spot secure from observation.

She submitted without a hint of resistance. But she was trembling violently, and the contact with his hand was as fire to her blood.

Pausing, he stared and laughed uncertainly.

"Of all people!" he said in an undertone. "I never for an instant thought of you!"

Controlling her voice tolerably, she asked directly: "How did you get up again without my seeing you?"

"Simply enough-by the steps of the place next door. I saw you watching me-saw your head over the edge of the landing, black against the sky-and knew I'd never know who it was, unless by strategy. So I came up the other way and cut across to head you off."

He added, after a pause, with a semi-apologetic air: "What do you mean by it, anyway'?"

"What-?"

"Watching me this way-spying on me-?"

"But I didn't mean to. I was as surprised to see you as you were, just now, to see me."

"Honestly?"

His eyes searched hers suspiciously. Flushing, she endeavoured to assume some little dignity-drew up, lifted her chin, resumed possession of her hand.

"Of course," she said in an injured voice.

"Sure Mrs. – sure nobody sent you to spy on me?"

"Mr. Lyttleton!"

"I want to believe you."

"You've no right not to!"

"But what, will you tell me, are you doing out here this time of night?"

"I came out because I wanted to-I was restless, couldn't sleep."

He reflected upon this doubtfully. "Funny freak," he remarked.

"You're impertinent!"

"I don't mean to be. Forgive me. I'm only puzzled-"

"So am I puzzled," she retorted with spirit. "Suppose you tell me what you're doing out here at this time of night-down on the beach-anxious to escape notice. If you ask me, I call that a funnier freak than mine!"

"Quite so," he agreed soberly; "and a very reasonable retort. Only I can't tell you. It's-er-a private matter."

"So I presumed-"

"Look here, Miss Manwaring; this is a serious business with me. Give me your word-"

"What makes that essential? Why do you think I'd lie-to you '?"

It was just that little quaver prefacing her last two words which precipitated the affair. Otherwise a question natural enough under the circumstances would have proved innocuous. But for the life of her she could not control her voice; on those simple words it broke; and so the question became confession-confession, accusation and challenge all in, one.

It created first a pause, an instant of breathless suspense, while Lyttleton stared in doubt and Sally steeled herself, with an effect of trembling, reluctant, upon the brink of some vast mystery.

Then: "To me?" he said slowly. "You mean me to understand you might lie to another-but not to me?"