Nan had been thinking so much of Brighton, and Sal, and the downs, and ships and sailors, that when this orange glow fell on a gentleman whom she thought she recognised as Lieutenant Frank King she was scarcely astonished. She looked hard through the dusk; yes, surely it was he. 'Mary,' she said, but without any great interest, 'isn't that Lieutenant King standing by that farthest tree?' The eldest sister also peered through the obscurity. 'Well, yes, it is. What an extraordinary thing! Oh, I remember, he said he was going abroad. But what a curious coincidence! Why don't you go and speak to him, Nan?' 'Why should I go and speak to him?' said Nan. 'I should only get wet.' 'What can have brought him here?' said Edith. 'Not his ship, at all events,' said Mary Beresford, smartly. 'It's only Shakspeare who can create seaports inland.' 'You ought to know better than that,' said Nan with some asperity, for she was very valiant in protecting her intellectual heroes against the attacks of a flippant criticism. 'You ought to know that at one time the Kingdom of Bohemia had seaports on the Adriatic; every school-girl knows that nowadays.' 'They didn't when I was at school,' said Mary Beresford. 'But aren't you going to speak to Lieutenant King, Nan?' 'Oh, he won't want to be bothered with a lot of girls,' said Nan; and she refused to stir. A few seconds thereafter, though there was still an occasional flash of lightning, the rain slackened somewhat; and the young Lieutenant--who was clad in a travelling-suit of gray, by-the-way, and looked remarkably like the other young Englishmen loitering about the front of the hotel--emerged from his shelter, shook the rain-drops from his sleeves, and passed on into the dark. The very next morning the Beresfords left Lucerne for Zurich. They stayed there three days--Nan busy all the time in teaching herself how to propel a boat with two oars, her face to the bow; and she liked to practise most in moonlight. Then they left Zurich one afternoon, and made their way southward into the mountainous region adjacent to the sombre Wallensee. The stormy sunset deepened and died out; rain, rain, rain pursued them all the way to Chur. They got to their hotel there in an omnibus that jolted through the mud and the darkness.