CHAPTER XVIIIAn Adventure

Anna MariaFell into the fire,She was burnt to a cinder.Pa said: 'Let's open winder!'

In a river in the cityJack was drownedAnd never found.Mother said it was a pityHis new boots went down with him.They'd have fitted Brother Jim.

A bomb dropped on to the house and blewBeds, tables and chairs to Timbuctoo.'Dear, dear how annoying!' murmured Aunt May,'We'd spring-cleaned the place only yesterday!'

Poor little Johnnie, he swallowed his rattle,It stuck in his throat and he gave up life's battle;Theycouldn'tget Johnnie to 'ope eyes and peep'But they shook up the rattle and sold it off cheap."

The next on the list was Lorraine's own contribution.

DIARY OF A GIRL IN THE YEAR a.d. 4000To-day I used my new air wings, and flew up the Thames valley to see the remains of ancient London, recently excavated. It is an extraordinary sight, and certainly seems to throw some light upon the manners and customs of that quaint old nation, the English of two thousand years ago. In the museum are some weird specimens of public conveyances, notably a thing called a "tramcar" in which all sorts and conditions of people sat squeezed up side by side, and were whirled along the street, instead of the street moving as it does now, to convey passengers without any trouble. There were also machines called bicycles, consisting of two wheels and a saddle. The curator says they were much used in olden times, though how people balanced on them, goodness knows! Not half so convenient as our modern wings! Another interesting exhibit was a collection of clothing of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; coats, cloaks and dresses actually made of such rare materials as cloth, silk, cotton and velvet. It makes one gasp. How beautiful they must have looked—but oh! how insanitary! How different to our modern pulp clothing that is burnt (by law) every week. I am told some of the things used to be sent to a place called a laundry, and washed all together. No wonder germs were spread in those days! It is a marvel they did not all die off from infectious diseases. There were also some fine specimens of dishes upon which food used to be served, interesting as survivals of an old custom, but amazing to us, who live on concentrated tabloids. The time those ancients wasted over meals must have been stupendous! Some old school books also made me smile. Oh, the poor children of those days! Fancy them sitting at desks and trying their eyes over that wretched small print. Now, when all the teaching is by cinema and gramophone, we realize what a purgatory education must have been in the past. I am very thankful to be living ina.d.4000, with all our modern advantages. Think of having to go by sea to visit your friends in America, when to-day we simply get out the balloon and whisk over to pay a call. My new electric shoes have justcome, and I expect will be a tremendous aid to my dancing. I shall wear them at my birthday-party. By the by, I must send a wireless to Connie, to ask if she means to come to my party. She mentioned yesterday that she was flying to China, but perhaps she will be back in time. Dad has promised me a new best glass-sided diving boat for a present, so I hope to do a little ocean exploring this summer. I hear the scenery at the bottom of the Pacific is most beautiful—far finer than the Atlantic, which everybody knows now. Well, I must go and start my gramophone, or I shan't know my Japanese lesson for to-morrow. Professor Okuto is the limit if one slacks. Good-bye, dear little diary. I'll type some more in you another day.

DIARY OF A GIRL IN THE YEAR a.d. 4000

To-day I used my new air wings, and flew up the Thames valley to see the remains of ancient London, recently excavated. It is an extraordinary sight, and certainly seems to throw some light upon the manners and customs of that quaint old nation, the English of two thousand years ago. In the museum are some weird specimens of public conveyances, notably a thing called a "tramcar" in which all sorts and conditions of people sat squeezed up side by side, and were whirled along the street, instead of the street moving as it does now, to convey passengers without any trouble. There were also machines called bicycles, consisting of two wheels and a saddle. The curator says they were much used in olden times, though how people balanced on them, goodness knows! Not half so convenient as our modern wings! Another interesting exhibit was a collection of clothing of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; coats, cloaks and dresses actually made of such rare materials as cloth, silk, cotton and velvet. It makes one gasp. How beautiful they must have looked—but oh! how insanitary! How different to our modern pulp clothing that is burnt (by law) every week. I am told some of the things used to be sent to a place called a laundry, and washed all together. No wonder germs were spread in those days! It is a marvel they did not all die off from infectious diseases. There were also some fine specimens of dishes upon which food used to be served, interesting as survivals of an old custom, but amazing to us, who live on concentrated tabloids. The time those ancients wasted over meals must have been stupendous! Some old school books also made me smile. Oh, the poor children of those days! Fancy them sitting at desks and trying their eyes over that wretched small print. Now, when all the teaching is by cinema and gramophone, we realize what a purgatory education must have been in the past. I am very thankful to be living ina.d.4000, with all our modern advantages. Think of having to go by sea to visit your friends in America, when to-day we simply get out the balloon and whisk over to pay a call. My new electric shoes have justcome, and I expect will be a tremendous aid to my dancing. I shall wear them at my birthday-party. By the by, I must send a wireless to Connie, to ask if she means to come to my party. She mentioned yesterday that she was flying to China, but perhaps she will be back in time. Dad has promised me a new best glass-sided diving boat for a present, so I hope to do a little ocean exploring this summer. I hear the scenery at the bottom of the Pacific is most beautiful—far finer than the Atlantic, which everybody knows now. Well, I must go and start my gramophone, or I shan't know my Japanese lesson for to-morrow. Professor Okuto is the limit if one slacks. Good-bye, dear little diary. I'll type some more in you another day.

The girls giggled.

"You've gone ahead rather far," commented Audrey. "It sounds blissful to fly, and use a diving boat, but I'd draw the line at learning Japanese."

"Oh, it will be one of the languages of the future, no doubt!" Lorraine assured her. "French will probably be quite old-fashioned, unless it's studied like Greek and Latin are nowadays."

"I expect the children of even a few hundred years hence will have awful times learning the history of this war," said Dorothy.

"Probably they'll know more about it than we shall ever do. There are generally secret facts that crop up again after everybody is dead. It'll be a gold-mine for historians."

"And for story-writers."

"Rather!"

"Audrey, choose another scrap of paper, and see who's next on the list."

It proved to be Patsie, and her contribution was a collection of parodied proverbs. She called them:

MORAL MAXIMS FOR YOUTHFUL MINDS

Take care of the shrimps, and the lobsters will boil themselves.Haste not pant not.A cockroach saved is a cockroach gained.A mouse in the hand is worth two in the hole.Treacle by any other name would taste as sweetCatch moths while the moon shines.All is not mirth that titters.A squashed slug dreads the spade.It's the last sob that breaks the camel's heart."And if a child won't learn his maxim,The teacher promptly takes and smacks 'im!"

"And if a child won't learn his maxim,The teacher promptly takes and smacks 'im!"

Vivien, who was fond of rhymes, had cudgelled her brains for Limericks, and produced the following:

NELLIE APPLEBY

There was once a schoolgirl named Nell,Who fancied herself quite a swell;With her head in the airAnd her frizzled-up hair,She reckoned she looked just a belle.

PATSIE SULLIVAN

We know a young damsel named Pat,She's big, and she's floppy and fat.When to dance she beginsWe just shriek as she spins,And wonder whatever she's at!

LORRAINE FORRESTER

There is a head girl named Lorraine(Of which fact I admit she is vain),She walks on her toes,With an up-tilted nose,Her dignified post to sustain.

AUDREY ROBERTS

There is a young slacker named Audrey,Whose taste in cheap jewels is tawdry,Necklace, brooches, and banglesShe flaunts and she jangles,And her get-up is just a bit gaudy.

DOROTHY SKIPTON

I know a young person named Dolly,Who's ready for any fresh folly.She thinks she's a wit,And can make quite a hit,But she tells a few whoppers, my golly!

The girls giggled uneasily. There was a sting in each of the verses, and nobody likes to be made fun of. Somehow, Vivien always stuck in pins.

"We'll make one about you," began Patsie, with a rather red face.

"There was a young person named Vivvie,Who liked all her schoolmates to chivvy——"

But at this point Claudia suddenly, and perhaps rather fortunately, interrupted.

"What's that queer noise?" she asked. "It sounds like a sort of suppressed giggling!" There was dead silence for a moment.

"I don't hear anything," said Lorraine.

"I do, though!"

"It's a kind of snorting!"

"I believe it's at the back of the summer-house."

Patsie dashed up and darted round, and, with a yell of vengeance, flung herself upon three juniors crouched with their impudent noses pressed to a crack in the boards, through which they had been spectators as well as listeners during the proceedings. A fourth child was in the very act of descending from the garden wall.

"You young blighters! How dare you! You deserve to break your legs, swarming over a high wall like that! It would just have served you right if you had, and I shouldn't have been sorry for you. Not the least teeny tiny bit, though you limped about on crutches for the rest of your young lives! Come here at once!"

As a speedy method of collecting the offenders, Patsie seized them by their pig-tails, and hauled them in a bunch to the front of the summer-house. Lorraine eyed them severely.

"If this had been a Masonic meeting," she remarked, "you'd have been obliged to have your heads chopped off for eavesdropping. Freemasons keep a sword-bearer on duty, so I'm told, to kill anybody who tries to intrude. I'm not sure if we oughtn't to do something——"

She paused, as if searching for a suitable punishment.

"Cut off their pig-tails," suggested Patsie grimly.

"No! no!" yelled the interlopers, in genuine alarm.

"I certainly shall if you ever try to come eavesdropping again. I give you three seconds to get back to the house. Now then—scoot!"

The juniors did not wait to be told twice, but with their precious pig-tails flying in the wind, raced up the garden at record speed, and disappeared into the gymnasium. Lorraine laughed as she watched their long legs careering away.

"I'm afraid they heard the cream of it!" she admitted. "It was rather clever of them, wasn't it? That little Mona is the limit! She leads all the others. I shall make a point of sitting upon her hard for the rest of the term."

"Solomon said in accents mild,'Spare the rod and spoil the child;Be they man, or be they maid,Whack them, and wollop them,' Solomon said!"

quoted Patsie, choking over her last piece of chocolate.

To give Madame Bertier her dues, it was she who suggested the wild-flower ramble upon the cliffs. It was for seniors only, and it had the immense advantage, in schoolgirl eyes, that it was held upon a Thursday afternoon; Madame had urged Thursday and stuck to the point.

"It was real sporty of her," chortled Patsie. "Miss Kingsley or Miss Janet always try to fix up rambles or things of that kind for Saturdays, and then it's taking away a holiday instead of giving us one. We've all generally got something on at home for Saturday afternoons, and though, of course, we like rambles all right, it isn't quite good enough to have to throw up our home engagements for them. Three cheers for Madame!"

"Bless her!" murmured Audrey, ecstatically. "We shall miss French on Thursday afternoon and I hadn't done a single line of my exercise or learnt my poetry. It's moved a weight from my mind."

"Don't congratulate yourself too soon, old sport! She'll probably tell us to give in the exercises."

"Well, she can't hear the poetry at any rate."

"Unless she makes us say it on the cliffs!"

"Oh, surely there won't be time for that?"

"Um—I don't know! Never trust a teacher to give one arealholiday! Miss Janet always tries to 'combine instruction with amusement', as the old-fashioned children's books used to put it. Madame will probably try to teach us the French names of the flowers at any rate."

"Perhaps she doesn't know them!" said Audrey hopefully.

There were eighteen seniors in the school, and on the Thursday in question they were all ready by half-past two, armed with baskets or tin cases in which to put their flowers. Their exodus was watched with envy by the juniors, who had appealed in vain to be allowed to join the excursion.

"Eighteen are quite a big enough party to keep together," decreed Miss Kingsley, "and you juniors had an aquarium expedition only last week."

"But that was on a Saturday!" objected a valiant spirit, anxious to obtain a Thursday holiday.

Miss Kingsley, however, couldn't or wouldn't see the point, and withered the speaker with an extra-scholastic glare.

The elder girls were not at all sorry to be going alone. They clung to their privileges as seniors most tenaciously.

"We don't want the whole rag-tag and bobtail of the school trailing after us," said Dorothy. "It's quite enough in my opinion to include theFifth. I hate marching about in a troop, like trippers."

"Well, we can spread out when we get on to the cliffs. There's no need to be so fearfully particular to keep together."

Madame Bertier, among her many other accomplishments, possessed some knowledge of botany. She had studied the wild flora of the district, and knew where to take the girls to secure a variety of the best specimens. The walk she chose was down a lane, over some fields and across a portion of the moor, where Lorraine, who thought she knew all the neighbourhood of Porthkeverne, had never happened to go before. As in most rambles of the sort, it was a difficult task for the mistress to keep all the members of her flock in sight. Some were always on ahead, and others lagging behind, while a few would make detours over gates or banks in quest of particular specimens. There was the usual amount of jodelling, cuckooing and calling, and running back to fetch laggers; there was frantic excitement over a patch of wild strawberries, and great congratulation when several rare flowers were found and carefully put away in tin cases. As generally happens in natural history rambles, there was decided rivalry among the numerous budding botanists. Each wanted to be the first to secure a new specimen and to take it in triumph to show to Madame. Lorraine, who was not superior to the common weakness, had not yet had any luck at all. Seeing the others heading in a bee-line for a small tower on the hill, and, knowing she couldcatch them up there, she determined to branch off to the left, cross a dyke and go by herself over a particularly interesting-looking piece of the moor. If she were quick she would probably reach the tower as soon as most of the others; they would be sure to sit down there to rest and compare specimens. She would have asked Claudia to go with her, but Claudia was on in front talking to Dorothy.

"If I jodel to her it will give the show away," thought Lorraine. "No! I must do it on my own."

So she jumped a dyke, scrambled down a bank, and in a few minutes had reached a tract of wild heather-clad land that adjoined the cliff. Small bushes, bracken, and brambles mixed among the heather made walking difficult, and there were several boggy places which she was obliged to skirt. This took her farther than she had intended. Looking round she could not see her landmark, the tower.

"It must be over there to the right," she said to herself. "Hallo, what a gorgeous silver fritillary! I'll get it if I possibly can."

Lorraine was rather keen on entomology, and though she had no net with her, she pulled off her hat and ran in eager pursuit of the butterfly. It was an exciting chase, several times she nearly secured it, but it managed to elude her and flitted tantalizingly away. At last it paused and hovered, then settled on a spray of wild rose. Lorraine crept up stealthily, hat in hand. Surely she had her prize now? But just at the critical moment,again the lovely wings fluttered; she made a grab and a dash forward simultaneously, then suddenly the earth seemed to open and swallow her up.

As a matter of fact, she fell about nine feet, and lodged on a heap of shale. It was so totally unexpected, and so amazing, that she lay there for a moment or two almost stunned. Then she moved cautiously and sat up. She realized what had happened. In her mad rush after the butterfly she had not noticed where she was going, and she had fallen down the shaft of an old tin-mine. Above her were its rocky sides, with bushes and a patch of blue sky at the top. Below the ledge where she sat it sloped away towards a black hole. Lorraine, still a little dazed, shuddered as she looked down in the direction of that dark pit. She was unhurt, and she was safe enough on the edge of the shale, but how was she to get up to the level of the ground above? The sides of the shaft were far too steep to climb, and a slip might mean a plunge down, down, down into that horrible depth that loomed below.

She stood up cautiously and shouted with all the force of her lungs. There was no reply. Again and again she called, but beyond the alarm-note of a blackbird there was no response. She began to grow seriously frightened. She must be some distance from the tower, and she had wandered from the rest of the party. Suppose nobody heard her calling? The bare idea sent her breath in gasps. In time, no doubt, they would notice her absence, but they would not exactly know where tosearch for her. They might even imagine that she had gone home. Suppose the night came on before she was found? Suppose even days were to pass and nobody remembered the disused mine or thought of looking for her there! With white cheeks and trembling hand she leaned against the side of the shaft and called with what breath she could still muster.

There was a rustling among the heather above, and a face suddenly blocked the blue of the sky—a vacant face that peered down with the curiosity of a child. Lorraine gave a fluttering cry of relief.

"Landry!" she called. "Landry!"

How or from where he appeared she could not guess, though it was possible that he had seen the school passing near Windy Howe and had followed Claudia in the distance. He stared down at Lorraine with a certain amount of interest, but as much unconcern as if she were a bird or a rabbit.

"Landry!" she cried again. "Claudia is up by the tower. Go and tell her I have fallen down the old mine!"

The bushes rustled, and once more that patch of blue sky appeared above. Landry had gone indeed, but would he bring help? Lorraine feared that all he cared about was to find Claudia, and that with his customary taciturnity it was quite within the bounds of possibility that he might never mention her predicament at all.

SHE STOOD UP CAUTIOUSLY

She waited a while and then shouted, and kept on calling at intervals. Her wrist watch told hershe had been nearly an hour down the shaft. Would help never come? She was very tired and her head swam. If she were to faint, nothing could save her from falling down into that black gulf below. Her voice was growing weaker. It seemed stifled inside the shaft. What was that sound in the distance? Surely a shout! With all her remaining energy she raised her voice in a wild halloo. Next moment Dorothy peeped over the bushes and turned with a cry to summon Claudia.

Though she was found, it was more than an hour before adequate help could be fetched from a farm, but at last two men appeared carrying a ladder, which they lowered down the shaft on to the ledge of shale. Then one of them descended and helped Lorraine to mount. Madame and a thrilled group of girls were waiting for her at the top.

"Did Landry tell you?" Lorraine asked Claudia.

"Yes, he told me and brought me to the place," said Claudia. "Landry may be very proud of himself to-day, the dear boy!"

"That mine did ought to be fenced round," remarked one of the men who had brought the ladder. "Mr. Tremayne's been warned about it many a time, but he's always put off having it done."

"Ah yes, it must be fenced!" exclaimed Madame, hysterically. "Mon élève!If she had fallen a little farther, what then?"

The man shrugged his shoulders, but Lorraine,who had been sitting on the grass, sprang to her feet.

"Don't!" she implored. "Don'tplease say any more about it. I want to get away from the place. I know I shall dream it over again all night! Let me go straight home. I don't want to get any more flowers. I want just to be quiet and forget about it if I can."

At the end of June Morland came home on leave. He looked well in his khaki. Military training and camp-life had already worked wonders with his physique; his lanky, overgrown aspect had disappeared, his chest measure had increased, and he proudly showed the muscle in his arm. His father, always with an eye to artistic effects, wished to sketch him for a picture of Hector, and indeed, with his classic profile and short, crisp, curly, golden hair, he would have made a capital representation of that Trojan hero. But Morland absolutely struck at the suggestion of sitting as model, declaring that he meant to enjoy himself during his brief leave, and should not even show his nose inside the studio.

"Dad must paint the kids," he confided to Claudia. "I'm fed up with portraits. Don't even mean to have my photo taken if I can help it. You remember that picture of me when I was about five—'Grannie's Darling'? It came out as a coloured Christmas supplement, and was stuck up in everybody's nursery. Well, they got to know at the camp that I was the original of it,and they led me a life I can tell you! They've christened me 'Grannie's Darling'! I'm not going to be 'Hector' or anybody else! It isn't good enough! I sometimes wish I were as dark as a gipsy and had a broken nose! They couldn't call me 'My Lady's Lap-dog' then! Do you know, they caught me once and held me down and tied a blue ribbon round my neck! I gave them something back though, for ragging me! They didn't get it all their own way. Lap-dog indeed! Wait till I'm out at the front, and I'll show them who's the bull-terrier!"

"Poor old boy, it seems to rankle!" consoled Claudia laughingly. "I should think it's probably envy on their part. They wish they could send as good-looking a photo home to be put in a locket! Just forget them while you're on leave. We'll try to do something jolly. What would you like best? It's Saturday to-morrow, so I'm at your disposal. Shall we go for a picnic somewhere?"

"Yes, if the kids don't trail after us! I don't bargain to take Beata, Romola, Madox, Lilith, Constable, Perugia and perhaps the baby in its pram!"

"Youshan't!I'll see to that. Just Landry and I'll go, and we won't tell the small fry we're off."

"How about the grotto?"

"A1! I'll ask Lorraine to come with us. The tide will be just right to get round the rocks, so we'll take our lunch and eat it there."

Lorraine, shamelessly regardless of appointmentsat the dentist's and dressmaker's, accepted the invitation, and joined the party with a picnic-basket. It was an ideal day for the excursion; the warm sunshine was tempered by a cool breeze blowing in straight from the Atlantic; the sea had assumed its summer hue of intense blue-green, and the cliffs were covered with the beautiful crimson wild geranium.

The young people loitered along in no particular hurry, looking out to sea at the vessels, picking flowers or wild strawberries, or even a few early dewberries. As they wound up the path by the coast-guard station they heard voices behind them, and a little party consisting of an officer and two ladies passed them, walking briskly in the direction of the moors. Morland, who had saluted, turned to the girls with an eloquent face.

"It's Blake, our captain," he explained. "I saw him travelling down on Thursday, and I believe he's staying at the 'George'."

"Do you like him?" asked Claudia.

"Like him? If there's one man on the face of the earth whom I abhor it's that fellow! Thinks he's the Shah of Persia and we're dirt under his feet! He's not popular, I can tell you. He makes my blood boil sometimes!"

"He's dropped something," said Lorraine, bending down and picking up a small leather dispatch case that was lying by the side of the pathway. She handed it to Morland.

"Could you run after him and give it to him?" suggested Claudia to her brother.

"I shan't trouble myself. He's gone too far."

"We can leave it at his hotel afterwards then."

"I suppose we can, though if he flings his things about like this he doesn't deserve to have them returned to him, the blighter!" groused Morland, pocketing the case with a frown. "I wish Blake was taking his leave somewhere else. I'd rather not breathe the same air with him!"

"Is it as bad as all that?" asked Claudia.

"Worse!" said Morland gloomily. "But I don't want to talk about him—he's the skeleton at the feast—the crumpled rose-leaf—the snake in the paradise—the anything else you like that spoils my enjoyment!"

"Rather mixed similes," laughed Lorraine. "But never mind! We'll forget him if you like. He certainly didn't look at all attractive in my opinion."

Morland pulled a face and shook a fist in the direction in which his officer had disappeared, then declared himself better and ready to jog along.

They found their special property—the cave—still uninvaded. No visitors had yet happened to come across it. The table and seats and the little cupboard at the end were just exactly as they had left them last time. They collected some driftwood, lighted a fire on the rocks below, and boiled their kettle. It was delightful to have a picnic again in the grotto. As they sat chatting afterwards, Morland pulled from his pocket the leather case which Captain Blake had dropped on the path. He turned it over thoughtfully.

"I've a score or two to settle with the owner of this," he remarked. "I'm not going to let him have it back too easily. I vote we just give him a scare about it. Let him think he's lost it altogether."

"Is it anything important, I wonder?" asked Claudia.

"The more important the better—serve him right for losing it. I say—I'm going to stow it away here in the cupboard. It'll be quite safe, but he won't know that, and I hope he'll be in a jolly state of mind about it. We'll give him a fortnight to get excited in, then you girls can come and fetch it, make it into a parcel, and leave it at the 'George', and ask them to send it on to him at the camp."

"It would really serve him right," sympathised Claudia; "only I don't quite know——"

"Idoknow!" chuckled Morland. "It's the best rag I've ever had the chance of playing on him, and you bet I'll take it."

"Suppose he finds out?" suggested Lorraine.

"He won't find out. How could he? You girls will just leave the parcel at the 'George', and say someone who picked it up had handed it over to you, and will they please forward it to the officer who was staying there. Nothing could be simpler."

"Are those the papers that send Morland to the war?" asked Landry suddenly.

"Don't you worry your head about them," answered Claudia soothingly. "They're nothing to do with you, Landry."

"I don't want Morland to fight!" persisted the boy. "Morland shan't go to the war!"

"I'll be off some day, old sport!" laughed Morland.

"To-morrow?"

"No, no, not to-morrow; but before so very long, I hope."

"Will the Germans shoot at you?"

"You jolly well bet they will!"

"Don't excite him, Morland," interfered Claudia; for when Landry once woke out of his usual stolid calm and began to trouble his poor dull brains with questions, he was apt to get peevish and troublesome. "No, no, Landry dear; Morland is quite safe at present, and we won't let the Germans get him. Take this basket down to the beach and find me some more shells. I want some yellow ones to finish the pattern I was making on the ledge here."

Claudia was an adept at managing Landry, and could keep the boy quiet and change the current of his impulses when others only irritated him. She put a basket in his hand and a yellow shell for a pattern, led him by the arm to the mouth of the grotto, and showed him the spot on the beach where he would be likely to find more. To her relief, he departed quite happily on the errand. She had been afraid he was on the verge of a burst of temper. She turned to her other brother.

"I'd a great deal rather you took that officer's case back to him right at once, Morland!"

But Morland was in a don't-care mood.

"He's not to have it for a fortnight. If I don't leave it in the cupboard here, I shall just chuck it into the sea, so I give you full and fair warning! Be a sport, Claudia! Here's Lorraine ready to see the fun of it. Aren't you, Lorraine?"

Neither of the girls was really quite easy about the propriety of thus hiding the officer's papers, but to please Morland they consented to do as he wished, and to come again in a fortnight to fetch them. After all, it seemed only a sort of practical joke, and, to judge from Morland's accounts, ragging was very much in fashion at his camp, among the Tommies at any rate. So long as Captain Blake did not find out who had kept the leather case there would be no trouble, and they thought he deserved some punishment for his arrogant behaviour towards his men.

It was a concession which they afterwards deeply regretted.

Morland's leave ended on Sunday night, and by Monday morning both he and his superior officer were back in camp. Claudia came to school in an unusually quiet and depressed frame of mind.

"Yes, I miss Morland," she acknowledged to Lorraine; "but it isn't altogether that. I'm worried about him. Perhaps it's silly of me, but I can't help it. I know I can't expect him to keep a boy always, yet one feels that growing up ought to be growing into something better—not worse. Honestly, between ourselves, I don't think Madame Bertier has a good influence over him. He's always fearfully taken with her, absolutely infatuated. She fascinates him just as she does Vivien and Dorothy and some of the girls at school, and she encourages him in things he'd much better let alone. She was up at Windy Howe on Sunday, and took Morland off for a long walk, although he'd promised to stay at home that last afternoon. They went along the cliffs towards Tangy Point. Don't think I'm jealous, but I really feel angry with her—carrying him away from his family when he'd only a few hours left of his leave!"

"I hope he didn't show her our cave?" asked Lorraine quickly.

"I hope not, but I think it's extremely probable. Oh, yes! I know he promised to keep the secret, but he's beginning to say that our secrets are childish, and not worth keeping. I've several times heard Madame asking him if he knew of any caves along the coast. If she asked persistently enough he'd be sure to tell her. I know Morland!"

"Why is she so keen on caves?"

Claudia shrugged her shoulders.

"There are a great many 'whys' about Madame that I can't answer. She's the sort of woman you read about in a novel. She's bewitched most people at Porthkeverne. I own she's very nice and pleasant, and when I'm with her I even fall under the spell a little, and almost like her, but all the time at the bottom of my heart I don't trust her at all."

Whatever Claudia's private opinion might be of Madame Bertier, that pretty Russian lady was very popular in the artistic and literary circles of the town. She was always ready to pose as model, or to play her violin at concerts or At Homes. She was capital company, had a fine sense of humour, and could keep a whole room full of people amused with her lively chatter. In addition to her engagement at The Gables she had now a number of private pupils in Porthkeverne, and had established quite a connection for lessons in French, Russian, and music. On the subject of her husband she was guarded, but it wasgenerally understood that he was a prisoner in Germany, and that she sent him parcels. Lorraine, with a remembrance of that brief sentence she had overheard at Burlington House, often wondered if that were the case.

Madame's Academy portrait had been considered quite one of the pictures of the year: it had been reproduced in art journals and illustrated papers, and in the opinion of the critics was almost Mr. Castleton's best piece of work. To Lorraine's great joy, "Kilmeny" also came in for a share of notice in the newspaper reviews, and one day a letter arrived at the studio by the harbour, containing a special invitation for the picture to be exhibited at an important provincial art gallery in the autumn. Such invitations are the swallows of an artist's summer of success, and Margaret Lindsay's eyes shone, as she showed Lorraine the official document with the city arms heading the paper.

"You've been my mascot, you see!" she said brightly. "I've tried to get into that particular exhibition time after time, and always had my pictures rejected. And now, just to think that I'm specially invited, and a place of honour kept for my 'Kilmeny'! I feel an inch taller! I must paint you in the sunset again, Lorraine!"

Lorraine, curled up on the window-seat, turning over art magazines, shook her head.

"Don't repeat yourself!" she advised. "Why not paint the dawn instead? It's just as beautiful as sunset—more so, I think, and would give youa different scheme of colour, all opal and pearly pink, instead of golden and brown. Can't you choose some other fairy-tale heroine?"

"Yes—the Dawn Princess! I can see her in imagination, standing at the edge of the waves, with a rosy sky behind her, and trails of sea-weed under her bare feet. I believe it would be a companion picture to 'Kilmeny'! If I can paint it in time, I'll see if the Art Gallery will consent to exhibit the pair. I'm actually getting ambitious. Will you stand as model again?"

"With all the pleasure in life, any time and anywhere you want me! I'm yours to command!"

A good and adequate picture of the dawn was not so easy to paint as a sunset. They were on the west coast, and, in order to get the effect of the sun rising over the sea, it was necessary to be on some promontory where they could look eastwards over a stretch of water. The only headland which answered the required points of the compass was Giant's Tor Point, which jutted out in a curve from the mainland, with the whole of Pendragon Bay between it and the opposite point of the coast. The sandy beach under its shelter had been named "Smugglers'Cove".It was several miles away from Porthkeverne, so unless they could walk there by moonlight, it would be quite impossible to reach it in time to witness from the beach the spectacle of dawn. A moonlight scramble over cliffs and rocks might be highly romantic, but not altogether a safe proceeding, and Margaret Lindsay had a better suggestion to offer.

"We'll take my little bathing-tent, and pitch it on the shore in some sheltered place, and spend the night there. There will be just room for us both to cram in, and with a rug each we should keep quite warm. Then we shall be all ready and prepared for the dawn the moment it comes."

The weather was so warm that there were no objections to camping-out, and Mrs. Forrester quite readily gave permission for the expedition.

"You're such asensibleperson, Muvvie dear!" gasped Lorraine ecstatically. "Some mothers would have howled at such a plan. I'm sure Aunt Carrie wouldn't have let Vivien go. You always seem to see things just from the same point of view as we do ourselves."

"I know you'll be safe with Margaret Lindsay, or I wouldn't let you stir five yards from my apron strings. I could be a dragon of a mother if the occasion required!" laughed Mrs. Forrester. "So far, happily, you've never wanted to do anything especially outrageous. I can see no harm in your camping-out on the beach just for one night. I should be a very unreasonable person if I objected."

"But then you're Muvvie and nobody else, you see!" said Lorraine, dropping a kiss on the dear brown hair that was just turning grey.

So it came to pass that on the very Tuesday evening after Morland had returned to camp, Margaret Lindsay and Lorraine shouldered bathing-tent, rugs, and picnic-basket, and trudged out to Giant's Tor Point. They arrived there about sunset, andfound a quiet, sheltered spot among the rocks, well above high-water mark, where they pitched their tent. There was not a soul in sight: they seemed to have the whole of the headland and the bay entirely to themselves. It was a calm, warm evening, and the waves lapped gently upon the beach. The sand in the spot they had chosen was dry, so they piled up heaps of it for pillows, and laid down their rugs; then, having completed these preparations, opened their baskets and had a picnic supper. The sunset had faded by that time, and a full moon was shining over the bay, glinting on the waves and lighting up the outlines of the crags on the headland. The silence was broken only by the gentle purring of the waves on the pebbles, or the call of some night-bird. The calm stillness was beautiful beyond description: it was like a glimpse into another world where all petty struggles and troubles had faded away. It needed an effort to leave the beautiful moonlight and go to bed inside the tent, but they tore themselves away from it at last, and rolled themselves up in their rugs. It was a long time before either of them slept; the unusual circumstances, their cramped position, and the swish-swash-grind of the waves made them keenly on the alert. Though Lorraine would not have confessed it for worlds, she found the situation a trifle eerie. She thought she heard noises in the distance, and recalled tales of smugglers and wreckers and ghost-haunted coves. She was glad to have Margaret close beside her. Therewas comfort in the sense of contact with something human. Not till after midnight did she fall into a troubled sleep.

When she awoke, the moon had passed across the sky, and the first hint of dawn was in the air. Margaret had flung back her rug, and was stepping out of the tent. Lorraine followed her, shivering a little, for the morning air was chilly. Everything was wreathed in pearly shadows, and the headland loomed like a grey mass of mist, with the sea for a silver lake below. Each moment the light seemed to grow stronger, and what at first had appeared mere clumps of darkness resolved themselves into mussel-covered rocks or banks of sea-weed. At the far side of the bay, behind the heather-clad hill, the sky was changing from pearl to rose. Margaret, whose paints were ready, began to set up her easel to sketch the evanescent effect without delay. But just as she was putting in the pegs, Lorraine nudged her and pointed. At the end of the cove, where the bay merged into the open sea, there had suddenly arisen a strange object. They both looked at it, and both at the same moment realized what it was—neither more or less than the conning tower of a U-boat!

Margaret hastily pulled down her easel, and drew Lorraine behind the shelter of some rocks. She judged that if a U-boat were so near to the coast, then somebody in collusion with the enemy must be about on the shore. Nor was she mistaken. They had hardly concealed themselves when voices were heard quite a short distance away, and the gratingsound of a boat being pushed along the shingle. In the gathering brightness of the dawn they could see, not a hundred yards off, the entrance to a cave from which two men were taking some barrels. They rolled them down the beach, and with apparent difficulty hoisted them into a small boat. So intent were they on their occupation that they never glanced in the direction of the rock where Margaret and Lorraine were concealed. The bathing-tent, fortunately, was round a corner, and out of sight. No doubt they imagined that in that early hour of the morning they had the cove to themselves. Two anxious pairs of eyes, however, were watching them narrowly, and making a mental register of their actions. As the men went back to fetch more barrels, they were met by a third companion who issued from the cave; he stood for a moment speaking to them, and looking out over the water towards the conning tower of the U-boat. The first rays of the rising sun fell full on his face.

As she watched him standing there in the sunlight, with the background of the dark cave behind him, some detached links in Lorraine's memory suddenly welded themselves together, and formed a continuous chain. In a flash she recollected where she had seen him before—he was the man who had tried to take the photo of the hockey field and of the golf links in the autumn, and not only that, but she could almost be sure that he was identical with the stranger who had met Madame Bertier on the beach, and the foreigner who had admired her picture in the Academy. The suddendiscovery almost stunned her. She realized all it might mean. It was evident enough what the men were doing. They had a secret store of barrels of oil inside the cave, and were taking them out to supply the U-boat. They were in a hurry, and the business did not last long. Their cargo was soon complete, the boat pushed off and was making its way along the side of the cove to the place where the conning tower still showed like a blot on the water.

As soon as it seemed safe to move from their hiding-place, Margaret and Lorraine dodged round the rocks, and abandoning tent, easel, and painting accessories climbed up the cliff-side and tramped home across the moor to Porthkeverne with all possible speed. They were sure that what they had witnessed ought to be reported at once, so they went straight to the police station and told their amazing story. The constable listened attentively, jotting down points in his notebook, asked various questions and took their names and addresses. He was guarded in his communications, but he thanked them for coming.

"I may have to call on you for more help" he remarked thoughtfully, then turning to Lorraine: "I suppose you're at home to-day if I chance to want you?"

"You'll find me at school at The Gables until four o'clock."

He nodded, and made another entry in his notebook, then, dismissing them courteously, rang up his chief on the telephone.

Lorraine went home to breakfast, feeling as if she had suddenly stepped into the pages of a detective story. That some treachery was taking place at Porthkeverne was beyond question: loyal subjects of King George do not supply U-boats with casks of oil, and the man whom she had seen was palpably no British subject, but a foreigner. She wondered what the next step in the course of events would be, and what help she would be able to render. The answer to her surmisings came from a direction she had not anticipated. She had only been at school about an hour, and was at work on a piece of unseen Latin translation, when a message was brought to her summoning her to the study. She found her Uncle Barton there, talking to Miss Janet.

"Lorraine," he said briefly, "Miss Kingsley has excused your lessons to-day. Get your hat and coat and come with me, for I want to take you by train. We've just time to catch the 10.40 if we're quick."

Much excited and puzzled, Lorraine flew to the cloak-room, and donned her outdoor shoes and hat with lightning speed. What was going to happen next in this amazing chain of events? On the way to the station, Uncle Barton explained.

"The police have long been trying to catch a notorious spy, and from the description you gave this morning, they think they are on the right track of the man they want. A certain foreigner at St. Cyr is under observation, but they cannot arrest him without a witness to his identity. If you can certify that to the best of your knowledge he isthe man whom you saw this morning supplying casks of oil to a U-boat, then the police can act. Should you know him again if you saw him?"

"I'd remember him anywhere now!" declared Lorraine.

It was a comparatively short journey to St. Cyr, and on arrival there they went straight to the police station. They were shown by a constable into a private office, where they were shortly joined by a detective. He questioned Lorraine carefully as to the various occasions on which she had seen the suspected foreigner.

"A man answering exactly to that description has been staying at a boarding-house in Spring Terrace," he commented. "We happen to know that he was out all last night, and returned on a motor bicycle at eight o'clock this morning. These facts would fit in with the supposition that he was at Giant's Tor Point at dawn. What we want you to do is to watch the house, and identify him if he comes out. Now of course you understand that it wouldn't do for a young lady and a detective to sit on the doorstep waiting for him. At the first sight of us he'd escape by the back way. We want to catch him off his guard. My idea is this. Have you any notion of gardening?"

"A little," said Lorraine, surprised.

"You could rake about, at any rate, and pull up a few weeds? Well, there's a small public park right in front of the house in Spring Terrace. If you don't mind putting on a land worker's costume that I've borrowed for you, we'll employ you for the dayon a job of gardening in the park. You can keep one eye on the weeds, and the other on the front door of 27 Spring Terrace. I shall be near you, bedding out fuchsias. You agree to take on the job? Then may I ask you to step into this other room and put on your land costume? There's no time to be lost. We don't want to miss the fellow. I've a man selling newspapers and watching the house, but he's no use as a witness."

This was indeed an excitement. Lorraine felt thrills as she hurried into the corduroys, leggings, and smock that had been placed ready for her. They were an indifferent fit, but in the circumstances that did not matter. The hat she thought decidedly becoming. On her return to the office she found that Detective Scott had also accomplished a quick change. He was now arrayed in a shabby suit of clothes, and carried a parcel of bedding-out plants.

He smiled satisfaction at her get-up, and handed her a rake and a basket.

"Good luck to you!" said Uncle Barton. "I shall be somewhere about in the park, not far from you; but I'd better not show up too much. These fellows soon get their suspicions aroused if they see people hanging round."

It was certainly a new experience for Lorraine to walk through the streets of St. Cyr in smock and corduroys, but the townspeople were so well used to land workers that nobody took any particular notice of her. The park was close at hand,and here the detective, setting down his parcel of fuchsias, showed her a patch of border next to the railings, and instructed her to weed and rake it.

"No. 27 is the house with the green blinds and the plant in the window," he whispered. "I've seen Jones—the man who's selling newspapers—and he says nobody has come out from there yet answering to the description of the fellow we want."

With that he left her, and, turning his back, began operations on a round bed already fairly full of lobelias and geraniums. Lorraine, with all her attention concentrated on the door of No. 27, worked abstractedly. She thought afterwards that, if any of the ratepayers of St. Cyr had taken the trouble to watch her gardening operations, they would have decided that girls on the land were certainly not worth their salt. She raked, and weeded, and picked up a few dead twigs, and scraped some moss off the path with a trowel, turning her head every other moment to peep through the railings. Once the door of No. 27 opened, and she held her breath, but it was only a lady who came out with a little child. Was this mysterious foreigner really in the house? He might have escaped by a back way, or have gone off in some disguise, in which case all her waiting would be in vain. Hour after hour passed by. The night at the cove and the agitation of the early morning had made her very tired, but she stuck grimly to her job. She was hungry, too, for it was nearly three o'clock, and she had eaten nothing since breakfast. The detective,who had been pottering about the flower-beds, sauntered carelessly up to her as if to direct her work.

"Can you hold out any longer?" he asked under his breath.

"I'll try!" she answered pluckily.

"I'll send a boy to buy you some buns. I expect, after a night out, the fellow's sleeping. There's no knowing what time he may choose to take a walk. The only thing is to stick it as long as you can."

The buns arrived in due course, delivered in a paper bag by a small boy. Lorraine felt a little better after eating them, but her task of waiting and watching had grown irksome in the extreme. She hated that patch of ground behind the railings. She felt that she would remember the look of the brown soil for the rest of her life. The market-hall clock chimed the quarters. The distance between the chimes seemed interminable. She had never realised that fifteen minutes could be so long. Four o'clock struck, then the time dragged on till half-past, then a quarter to five.

"I believe I'll faint or do something silly if I stay here much longer!" thought Lorraine. "I wish my legs wouldn't shake in such an idiotic manner!"

Five o'clock sounded from the tower of the market hall. She stretched her weary back, and leaned on her rake. Her eyes were fixed on the door opposite. It was opening. Someone was standing in the hall, and apparently speaking. He slammed the doorand came down the path towards the gate. There was no mistaking the dark, clean-shaven face; she knew its owner again instantly. At the gate he paused and lighted a cigarette, then walked rapidly away in the direction of the railway station.

The detective turned from his flower-beds, humming a tune with apparent indifference.

"Can you identify him?" he whispered.

"Certainly I can. Without a doubt it's the man I saw this morning."

"We'll just catch him at the corner of the park, then. I've a couple of men waiting," chuckled the detective, taking a short cut over the flower-beds, regardless of tender seedlings.

Lorraine was not near enough to witness the actual arrest. What happened next was that Mr. Barton Forrester came and took her back to the police station, where she formally identified the prisoner. Then she thankfully changed into her own clothes, and went with Uncle Barton into the town to get some tea.

Little Uncle Barton was as excited and pleased as a boy at the result of the adventure. His face beamed with satisfaction as he ordered cakes at the café.

"We've done a good day's work, Lorraine," he confided, lowering his voice lest bystanders should overhear. "That fellow has been under suspicion, but they couldn't catch him tripping. Dodson, the detective, believes he'll turn out a notorious spy, in which case they'll have plenty of witnesses against him on other charges, without needing to bring youinto the matter again. They'll deal with him under martial law. There are far too many of these spies about the country—half of the foreigners who are here ought to be interned! You looked A1 in that rig-out" (his eyes twinkled). "Will you stick to your job as lady-gardener in the park?"

"Not for worlds!" exclaimed Lorraine eloquently, helping herself to a second cup of tea.

When Lorraine looked back upon those few warm days in July, she decided that they had contained more concentrated adventure than had been provided in the whole course of her life. Events seemed to follow quickly one upon another.

On the day after her exciting experience at St. Cyr she went to school as usual. It was an effort to do so, for she was tired, but she had a record for punctual attendance, and did not wish to break it unless under special compulsion. To her surprise, Claudia was absent. She missed her chum, and kept looking anxiously towards the door, expecting the golden head to pop in at the eleventh hour. But nine o'clock and the roll-call came, and no sign of Claudia. Miss Turner marked her absent, and put back the book inside the desk. The girls took out their copies of Molière, in preparation for the French lesson. Miss Turner collected some papers from her desk, and walked away to instruct the Third Form on the subject of Roman history. The Sixth sat with their books before them and waited. Under ordinary circumstances Madame Bertier was punctuality personified. She was generally in theschoolroom before Miss Turner made her exit. What had happened to her to-day? At twenty minutes past nine Miss Janet entered, looking flurried.

"I fear Madame must be unwell, as she has not come or sent a note," she explained briefly. "You had better go on with your preparation and write your exercises. I suppose you know what to do next? Then get to work, and of course I put you on your honour as seniors to keep the silence rule."

Lorraine, sitting scribbling away at her desk, felt in no mood to break the rule by entering into conversation with either Dorothy or Audrey, who sat respectively to right and left of her. Her thoughts were far away from the pen which was automatically writing her exercise. What had become of Madame Bertier? Was her absence in any way connected with the events of yesterday? That was the question which kept forcing itself upon her brain. She wondered whether Miss Janet had ever harboured suspicions of the attractive Russian. She had never fallen under her sway so completely as her sister had done. Something in Miss Janet's worried expression made Lorraine think her surmise a correct one. Lorraine's French grammar went to the winds that morning, and she wrote down mistakes, which, in calmer moments, would have caused her to shudder.

At the eleven o'clock interval, Claudia walked into the cloak-room. Lorraine, who had come for her packet of lunch, greeted her with surprised enthusiasm.

"Here you are at last! Why are you so late? I've simply loads to tell you! Do you know that Madame Bertier's never turned up to-day?"

"Hasn't she?" said Claudia abstractedly. "I've loads to tell you too, Lorraine. Come into the garden; I don't want anyone to overhear."

When they were out of reach of the ears of prying juniors, Claudia continued:

"I'm in dreadful trouble; that's why I'm so late. Everything's gone wrong. Yesterday afternoon I had a telegram from Morland: 'Take parcel immediately to the George'."

"That case that the officer lost? I always thought Morland ought to have given it back to him at once. Well! Did you go to the cave and fetch it?"

"I went," said Claudia slowly, "but, when I looked in the little cupboard, it wasn't there."

"Not there!" Lorraine's tone was horror-stricken.

"No. I hunted all round the cave, but it had gone, absolutely."

"Great Scott! What are we to do?"

"I don't know. I telegraphed to Morland that it was lost. I hope he won't get into trouble about it."

"I hope not." Lorraine's face was very grave.

"And to make things worse, Landry is ill in bed to-day. He's in one of his most fractious moods, and won't have anybody near him but me. I only ran down to school for a few minutes to tell you that the dispatch case is lost, then I must go backto him. I've explained to Miss Janet that he's ill, and I have to nurse him. There's the bell, and you must go in. What a nuisance! Come and see me after four, if you can."

"I'll try. Good-bye till then."

Claudia and Lorraine hurried in opposite directions, the one home and the other into school. Lorraine was in a ferment of emotion. Who could possibly have taken the pocket case? Some intruder must have discovered their cave and have stolen it from the cupboard. Was it some chance tourist who had climbed up the rocks, or was it—could it be—Madame Bertier?

Lorraine had always suspected that Morland had told her the secret of the grotto. What if she had gone there, found the officer's private papers, and made treasonable use of them? There were so many doubtful episodes in connection with her—the cut telephone wire; her meeting on the shore with the man arrested only yesterday as a spy, who had claimed her portrait at the Academy as that of his wife.

"It looks bad!" thought Lorraine. "Oh, why didn't we persuade Morland to give that wretched case back at once to his captain? What will he do when he gets Claudia's telegram?"

The answer to this question came later on in the day. She was walking back to school at a quarter past two that afternoon, when just by the windmill she met Morland himself on a motor bicycle. He dismounted at once.

"Lorraine! The very person in all the world Iwant to see. I say, I'm going to ask to leave the bike at the windmill here, then will you walk up the hill with me?"

"It's nearly school time!" demurred Lorraine.

"Hang school for once! I tell you Imusttalk to you. I'm in the most awful mess I've ever got into in my life. Is it true what Claudia telegraphed? Is that pocket book really gone from the grotto?"

He spoke rapidly, catching his breath. Lorraine felt that, as in the case of yesterday, school must yield to weightier matters. She could not desert Morland now for the sake of a botany class. His business was urgent.

"Leave your bike then, and I'll come," she consented.

So they walked up the hill together towards Windy Howe, and he poured out his story.

"It seems there were most important papers in that pocket case," he confided. "The captain's kicked up an awful shindy at losing them. He's inquired and advertised, and put it into the hands of the police. At first I was like Brer Rabbit, I just 'lay low and said nuffin', and chuckled to think I was leading him such a dance. Then one of the chaps told me he'd heard that a coast-guard at Porthkeverne had seen a Tommy picking something up on the road. I can tell you that made me sit up. I'd forgotten we were close to that wretched coast-guard station. I twigged in a flash that I was in the greatest danger of discovery. Blake would remember passing me on the moor. I stood aside and saluted. There was no other Tommy near.Lorraine, if they fix this on to me I shall be court-martialled! I tell you I simply can't face it!"

It seemed indeed the most desperate problem with which they had ever dealt. Unless the case were found, ruin stared Morland in the face. Captain Blake, strictest of martinets, would not be likely to overlook so grave an offence.

"How did you manage to come over here to-day?" asked Lorraine.

"Pitched it strong about urgent business and got a few extra hours off, borrowed a motor-bike and pelted here for all I was worth. I felt I didn't care whether I broke my neck or not."

"Oh, Morland!"

"Well, I tell you I didn't! I rode part of the way at sixty miles an hour, and I whizzed down that long hill to St. Cyr simply like a hurricane. Look here, I don't want to show up at home for fear Dad or Violet ask questions. What's to be done?"

"Wait at the bottom of the orchard and I'll run up to the house and fetch Claudia. She's at home to-day nursing Landry, who's in bed."

"You mascot! The very thing!"

Leaving Morland sitting under the elder bushes by the orchard gate, Lorraine made her way into the garden, and, finding one of the numerous little Castletons playing about, despatched her with a message to Claudia. The latter came out at once, Lorraine explained hurriedly, and the two girls, with some difficulty evading the curiosity of Beata, Romola and Madox, whisked down a side path intothe orchard, and joined Morland. They held a very agitated council of three under the elder bushes.

"Are youcertainthe case isn't there?" urged Morland.

"Absolutely. I hunted for half an hour round the cave," declared Claudia.

"Then who's taken it? If it's some chance tourist who's got it, it may be returned."

Lorraine shook her head.

"I'm terribly afraid it's Madame Bertier. I believe she's mixed up in a very queer piece of business here. I want to tell you what happened yesterday."

As Lorraine recounted her adventures at St. Cyr, and the connection of the foreigner, whom she had helped to identify, with the fascinating Russian, Morland's face darkened.

"Great Heavens! Was the woman a spy after all?" he groaned. "It's the limit! What an infernal ass I've been! If she's caught with those papers on her, and they're traced to me, I'm done for—once and for all! Look here, I'm going out to the cave to have one last hunt for the case. It might have slipped behind something. Will you girls come with me?"

"What's the use? I know we shan't find it," said Claudia. "Besides, I can't leave Landry. He's in bed, and very troublesome. He talks rubbish the whole time, mostly about you, Morland! He keeps suddenly laughing and saying he's stopped your going to the war, and isn't it clever of him, but he gets angry if I ask how,and shouts out that it's his secret and he won't tell me. Violet's fed up with him. I left her in his room, but if I'm not quick back, she'll be sending one of the children to hunt for me."

Morland rose hurriedly.

"I'd best scoot before the kids find me out. Lorraine, will you come?"

It seemed cruel to desert the poor boy at such a pinch, so Lorraine consented, but by the time they had walked down the steep lane to Pettington Church she changed her mind. At the lychgate she stopped.

"I'm so tired to-day, Morland! I don't think Icantrudge all that way to Tangy Point! Time's important, and you'll walk so much faster without me. You hurry on, and I'll wait for you here."

"Right oh! I'm a selfish beast to ask you to go. Good-bye, old girl! If I don't find that case, perhaps you'll never see me again!"

"Morland! Morland!" called Lorraine.

But his khaki-clad figure was already tearing along the steep track up the cliff, and he did not look round. In another moment he had vanished behind a turn of the rocks.

Lorraine sank down on the seat inside the lychgate. She felt mean at not walking with him, but the afternoon was sultry and hot, and she was very tired after her yesterday's adventures. She knew that he had gone on a fruitless errand, and that, though it might satisfy him to look on his own account, he would certainly not find the missing pocket-case inside the cave.

"Oh! why didn't I make a stand at the time, and insist on his giving it back to Captain Blake at once!" she fretted. "I wish I'd more strength of mind! I was a weak jelly-fish. He'd have done it if I'd held out more. What's going to happen now, goodness only knows! When he sees that the case really isn't there, I'm afraid he'll do something really desperate, run away, or jump into the sea, or anything. It's the worst fix I've ever been in, in all my life. Could I take the blame on myself? It was as much my fault as his. I'm certainly what would be called an accomplice. I wish I could ask Detective Scott about it, but I daren't. Morland might be arrested, like that spy. Oh! it's too horrible to think he may be court-martialled! Will they put him in prison? Shoot him, even?"

Lorraine's notions of military discipline were hazy, but she knew that the keeping back of important papers was an offence of the utmost seriousness, and that if they had fallen into the hands of a spy it might mean a charge of treason. Wild visions of saving Morland at any cost floated through her mind. She felt almost prepared to give herself up to the police and make a confession. Yet how could she do so without involving her friends? She would certainly be asked if she had picked up the case herself, and why she had not returned it immediately to its owner. What would she answer?

"They'd have it all out of me in five minutes when they began cross-questioning, and I shouldonly land Morland in a worse mess than ever," she decided gloomily. "Could Uncle Barton help, I wonder? No, as a special constable he'd be bound to give information. He's no more use than Detective Scott!"

Lorraine sighed, and moved farther along the seat into the shade. It was a broiling afternoon. The sun was pouring down on the grey tower of the little church, and on the mildewed grave stones and the bushes of rosemary and lavender, and the box edging that led to the Norman doorway. A rambler rose rioted over the railings of a monument; its crimson trusses of blossom veiled the broken urn inside. Over the wall the green cliff-side stood out against the gleaming sea. Bees were humming under the archway of the roof. Some swallows scintillated by with gleaming wings. Not a soul was near. She was alone with the sunshine and the birds and the flowers. There flashed across her a strong memory of the day when she and Claudia and Morland had taken their first walk to the cave, and had stopped to look at the church—the Forsaken Merman Church, as Claudia always called it. How happy they had been then, with no terrible shadow hanging over them! She could almost hear Claudia's voice quoting the poem:—

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