“By Jove! That’s the last thing it does! But if I mustn’t speak of that, I mustn’t. But please tell me this also. I understood from the nurse that you came with me to hospital. I am horrified every time I think of your having so much trouble, and I should like to understand how it all happened.” “There’s not much to tell,” Miss Merrill answered. “It was all very simple and straightforward. There happened to be a garage in the main street, quite close, and I went there and got a taxi. It was very dark, and when the driver and I looked over the fence we could not see you, but the driver fortunately had a flash lamp for examining his engine, and with its help we saw that you had fainted. We found you very awkward to get out.” She smiled and her face lighted up charmingly. “We had to drag you round to the side of the building where there was a wire paling instead of the close sheeted fence in front. I held up the wires and the cabby dragged you through. Then when we got you into the cab I had to go along too, because the cabby said he wouldn’t take what might easily be a dead body—a corp, he called it—without someone to account for its presence. He talked of you as if you were a sack of coal.” Cheyne was really upset by the recital. “Good Lord!” he cried. “I can’t say how distressed I am to know what I let you in for. I can’t ever forget it. All right, I won’t,” he added as she held up her hand. “Go on, please. I want to hear it all.” Miss Merrill’s hazel eyes twinkled as she continued: “By the time we got to the hospital I was sure that nothing would save me from being hanged for murder. But there was no trouble. I simply told my story, left my name and address, and that was all. Now tell me what really happened to you; or rather wait until we’ve had tea.” Cheyne sat back in his chair admiring the easy grace with which she moved about as she prepared the meal. She was really an awfully nice looking girl, he thought; not perhaps exactly pretty, but jolly looking, the kind of girl it is a pleasure just to sit down and watch. And as they chatted over tea he discovered that she had a mind of her own. Indeed, she showed a nimble wit and a shrewd if rather quaint outlook on men and things. “You mentioned Dartmouth just now,” she remarked presently. “Do you know it well?” “Why, I live there.” “Do you really? Do you know people there called Beresford?” “Archie and Flo? Rather. They live on our road, but about half a mile nearer the town. Do you know them?” “Flo only. I’ve been going to stay with them two or three times, though for one reason or another it has always fallen through. I was at school with Flo—Flo Salter, she was then.” “By Jove! Archie is rather a pal of mine. Comes out yachting sometimes. A good sort.” “I’ve never met him, but I used to chum with Flo. Congratulations, Mr. Cheyne.” Cheyne stared at her and she smiled gaily across. “You haven’t said that the world is very small after all,” she explained. Cheyne laughed.