"Good evening, sir," he said. "Mr. Dunbar told me as how you'd be wanting to be back in the house for a moment to fetch something you'd forgotten. "We'd best be just stepping off the lawn, sir, if you don't mind. They foreigners are always nosing around." They turned quietly off the grass and stood closely together under the dark shadow of the house. "I must go back at once," said Harkness. "There's no time to lose. It struck half-past twelve some time ago." "I don't know nothing about that, sir," said Jabez; "I only know as how you must be going back into the house for something you'd forgotten and I was to let you in." "Yes," said Harkness, his teeth chattering, "that's right." He wasn't made, in any kind of way at all, for this sort of adventure. He had never before realised how utterly inefficient he was. And of all absurdities to go back into the house when he was now safely out of it! Of all Dunbar's mad plan this was the maddest part. What could he do but be seen or heard and then rouse suspicion when it might so easily have been undisturbed? Let Crispin find him groping among those dark passages and what was his fate likely to be? There flashed into his consciousness then a sudden suspicion of Dunbar. It might suit the boy's plans only too well that he should be found, and so turn attention to another part of the house, leaving the girl free. But no! There was Dunbar's own steady clear gaze to answer him, and beyond that the certainty that Crispin's suspicions, roused by the discovery of himself, would proceed immediately to the girl. No, did he return at once, the plan was quite feasible. Seeing him there so soon after his departure, they could do nothing but accept his reasons, and that especially if he returned quite openly with no thought of concealment. But oh how he hated to go back! He put his hand on the rough stuff of Jabez's jersey, listened for a moment to the regular, consoling breathing of the sea, sniffed the roses and the cool, gentle night air, then said: "Well, come along, Jabez; show me how to get back." As they moved round to the door the thought came to him as to whether he had given the elder Crispin and his two nasty servants time enough to retire up to their part of the house. A difficult thing that, to hit the precise medium between too lengthy a wait and too short. He could not remember exactly what Dunbar had said as to that. "Do you think I've waited long enough, Jabez?" he asked. "Well, if you'd forgotten something, sir," said Jabez, "you'd want to be sure of finding it before the house is sleeping. They don't bolt this door, sir," he continued in a whisper, "because Mr. Crispin don't like to be bolted in. His fancy. After half-past one or so one of they Japs is around. It's just their hour like from half-past twelve to half-past one that I have to watch this part of the house extra careful. Yes, sir," he added as he turned the key in the lock and pushed the door quietly open. II