The gentleman strolling up the little white path which led over the cliff to the sea was indeed Captain Derinzy, limping along and slashing at the bushes with his cane in his usual military manner. He looked very much astonished at seeing Annette walking with his guest, and did not disguise his surprise. "Hallo!" he said, "you out here! Seldom you come out into the open air, isn't it?--Be much better for her if she came out oftener, wouldn't it, Wainwright? This is the stuff that they talk about in this country life. Why, in London a girl goes out and rides in the Row twice a-day, and walks and rides in Bond Street, and all that kind of thing, and get's plenty of exercise, don't you know? Whereas in the country it is so infernally dirty, and the roads are all so shamefully bad, and there are such a set of roughs about--tramps and that kind of people--that girls don't like going out; and yet they tell you that the country is more healthy than London! All dam stuff!" "Well, Miss Derinzy's looks certainly do credit to the country, though I regret to hear that they are not thoroughly to be relied on. She has been telling me she suffers a great deal from illness." "Oh, has she?" said the Captain, looking up nervously; "the deuce she has! Look here, Netty, don't you think you had better go in and dress yourself for dinner, and that kind of thing? It is quite cold now, and you haven't got any hat, and your aunt might make a row--I mean, mightn't like it, you know. Run in, there's a good girl; we shall all be in soon.-- Don't you go, Wainwright; I want to show you a view from the top of that hill--the Beacon Hill, they call it; it's about the only thing worth seeing in the whole infernal place." When Captain Derinzy went in to dress for dinner, he said to his wife: "It is a deuced good thing that I am a long-headed fellow and have my wits about me, and all that kind of thing. I found this young Wainwright walking with Annette, and he told me she had been telling him about her illness and all that. So I thought it best to separate 'em at once; and I sent her off into the house, and took him away to the Beacon Hill, though he seemed to me to be wanting to go after her all the time." CHAPTER XIX. TWO IN PURSUIT.