"You have made two blunders in one statement," was Miss Enid's pert retort. "He can't have been coming from the Manor House because he wasn't in evening dress. And he can't be down on his luck because he's got heaps of money. Why, he's going to start on a cruise round the world soon in a steam yacht that is fitting out at Portland." "Sorry I spoke," said Reggie. "Come, he's far enough ahead not to be a nuisance now; let me give you a hand up on to the path. I suppose that Mr. Mallory is prejudiced against Chermside, since he's a friend of Travers Nugent, eh?" Disdaining the offer of assistance, Enid ran lightly up the slope on to the path before replying. [Illustration: "Their glimpse was only momentary, because, as though dazzled, he raised his hand to his eyes."] "On the contrary," she said as Reggie joined her, "I can't quite make father out on the subject of Mr. Leslie Chermside. For once in a way the dear old man is inconsistent, or so he seems to me. He won't commit himself to a definite opinion, but I can see that he is deeply interested in Mr. Nugent's friend, and in the relations existing between the pair. I think, from signs and portents known only to myself, that father rather likes Mr. Chermside." "Lucky for Chermside," Reggie absently mused aloud. "There!" he added with a quick return to nautical briskness. "Thank goodness that infernal searchlight has moved off us and found the town at last. I prefer being at the other end of the beastly thing to having it in one's eyes. There goes the first gun from the cruiser." And under cover of the restored darkness arms were clasped again, and the young heads fell very close together for the rest of the way back to the town that was now being vigorously bombarded in mimic warfare. Two miles out at sea the big guns flashed and boomed, and ahead of them on the marshland path the footsteps of the man they had seen in the rays of the searchlight were dying away, so quickly had he outpaced the lingerers. But Lieutenant Beauchamp and Miss Enid Mallory took no heed of either, little dreaming of the terrible significance that attached to what they had seen and heard that night. CHAPTER VI THE CRY FROM THE TRAIN "Oh, good morning, Chermside. So you have not, after all, left Ottermouth yet, as you led me to infer would be the case." Leslie Chermside looked up from his newspaper to meet the steady gaze of Travers Nugent, who had just entered the reading room at the club. It was before the hour when the morning frequenters were wont to assemble, and for the moment they had the apartment to themselves. "No," said Leslie shortly. "I have changed my mind, and shall stay on for a while." Nugent carefully closed the door and came and stood with his back to the mantelpiece looking down at his late accomplice. "Does that mean that you have returned to your allegiance?" he asked softly. "Certainly not," came Leslie's flash of indignation.