Then she observed that the glass at this point was crushed and scraped till the wall top was smooth enough to pass with comfort. One might have supposed that someone made a practice of getting over just here; Pamela’s mind leaped to the thought of Peter Cherry, the boy--it would of course be his quickest way home to the Temperance Tea House. No doubt a secret way. She went up again and viewed the grounds. Immediately below were the kitchen-gardens--beyond that vistas of long shrubbery walks--lawns, fruit trees--every sort of tree, and everything overgrown and run riot. There was a wild luxuriance about the whole place which was natural to Bell Bay and its sheltered warmth. No one seemed to be about. After a few minutes’ hesitation, Pamela went "over the top" with a swift movement, and jumped down on to the vegetable-marrow bed. It was damp and soft. Pausing to reconnoitre she noticed two bricks missing in the wall on the inner side. The holes had all the appearance of steps made on purpose, and confirmed her opinion about Peter Cherry’s short cut. Then she went into the garden, making for the shelter of the nearest shrubbery. Keeping out of sight of window view she followed the paths in and out towards the house. Everywhere she looked for "tracks", for footmarks in the wet soil, and was pleased when she found the trace of a shortish square-toed boot with nail-studded sole. Certainly Peter Cherry! She felt she was getting on in experience. So absorbed was she that she confused the bush fringed paths, and got mixed up as to which she had inspected. Then, she came on the neat, narrow print of a woman’s shoe, and stooped to examine it with intense interest. Here was a plain track, and she followed it some yards between overhanging, very wet apple-trees, till it turned the corner into a cross path. Pamela stopped and looked up and down. Surely she had been this way before. She looked back between the green walls and felt certain the look of it was familiar. A thought struck her and she slipped off one of her own shoes, and compared the sole to the shoe print. Either it was her own track--which she was crossing unawares--or somebody else wore exactly the same sized shoe. It was a maddening dilemma. She was puzzling over this when she became aware of voices, not far distant, and coming nearer--from the house. Somebody was talking in what Pamela would have described as a "fussy voice". She stood listening, and might have been caught on that instant if the talkers had glanced down between the apple-trees, for two figures passed across the end of the alley she was in, and went on towards the kitchen-garden.