"It wasn't difficult," Harkness answered. "He went with me to that long room downstairs like a lamb. He told me that he had been wanting to speak with me to tell me that I was bothering his father and must keep away." "That you were bothering his father?" "Yes. He---- Wait. Do you hear any one coming?" They listened. The ramp-ramp of the sea was now very loud. They had come nearly two miles on the soft track across the Downs. They stayed listening, staring into the distance. There was no sound but the sea. Then a bell ringing mournfully, regretfully, through the air. "That's the Liddon," said Dunbar. "We must be nearly at our cottage. But I don't hear anything. Unless they saw the jingle they never would think of this. Our only danger was the younger Crispin going into Hesther's room after he left you. I believe we're safe." They stayed there listening. Very strange in that wide expanse, with only the bell for their company. They drove on a little way, and a building loomed up. This was a deserted cottage, simply the four walls standing. "I'm to tie the pony to this," Dunbar said. "Jabez will fetch it in the morning." They climbed out of the jingle and waited while the pony was tied. Having done it, Dunbar raised his head sniffing the air. "I say, don't you think the mist's coming up a bit? It won't do if it gets too thick. We'll have difficulty in finding the Cove." It was true. The mist was spreading like very thin smoky glass. The pony was etherealised, the cottage a ghostly cottage. "Well, come on," Dunbar said. "We haven't a great deal of time, but the Cove's only a step of the way. Along here to the right." He led, the others followed. Hesther had hitherto said nothing. Now she looked up at Harkness. "Thank you for helping us. It was generous of you." He couldn't see her face. He touched her hand with his for a moment. "I guess that was the least any one could do," he said. "Oh, I'm so glad it's over!" She gave a little shiver. "To be out here free after those weeks, after that house--you don't know, you don't know what that was." "I can pretty well imagine," Harkness answered grimly, "from the hour or two I spent in your father-in-law's company. But don't let's talk about it just now. Afterwards we'll tell each other all our adventures." "Isn't it strange," she said simply, "we've only exchanged a word or two, we never knew one another before this evening, and yet we're like old friends? Isn't it pleasant?" "Very pleasant," he answered. "We must always be friends." "Yes, always," she said. They were standing close to the broken wall of the cottage. It had a wonderfully romantic air in the night air. It was so lonely, and so independent as well. The storms that must beat around it on wild nights, the screams of the birds, the battering roar of the waves, and then to sink into that silence with only the voice of the bell for its company. But Dunbar was no poet--a ruined cottage was a ruined cottage to him.