It was the queerest walk home that they had ever experienced. Sands are generally associated with blue sky and bright sunshine, and those seemed very eerie and weird and strange in the moonlight, with the deep, dark shadows under the cliffs, and the sea gleaming silver in the distance. With one consent they took each others' arms. Aldred certainly did not feel sufficiently courageous to walk alone; moreover, she was tired, and could contrive to lean upon both Phœbe and Myfanwy, who were kind enough to pull her along without remonstrance. The sands on this part of the shore were not very firm, and the girls' feet sank with every step, while they stumbled now and then over stones or clumps of seaweed. It took a long time to cover the three miles to Birkwood; the distance seemed twice as far as it would have done by day, and they were thankful when at last they found the path which they knew led up the cliffs to the Grange. There was a light in the house; they could see it gleaming when they were still quite far off, and it seemed to hold out a promise of food and rest. As they opened the gate, the gardener's wife came running out of the lodge. She gave a shriek at the sight of them, and rushed straight up the drive to tell the news: and the four had barely arrived at the door before Miss Drummond herself came hurrying to meet them. "Girls! Girls! Where have you been?" she cried, with such a look on her pale face that they realized for the first time what she must have suffered during all the hours of that anxious night. Freda and Blanche (as the girls had supposed), not finding them at the post office, had imagined that they must have started home, and had returned without them. They had been greatly dismayed, when they arrived at the Grange, to discover that the four had not come back. They reported their absence at once, and a teacher started for Chetbourne, to try to find them. When darkness fell, and they were still missing, Miss Drummond, in the greatest alarm, applied to the police, and bands of searchers were looking for them in various quarters. It had never struck anybody that they could have gone on the steamer to Sandsend, which lay in the opposite direction to Chetbourne.