"Oh, is that her name?" said my uncle as soon as he could trust himself to speak. My cousin alone came straight to the point. "Then she has sent me this wire and this message?" "She must have," I agreed. "In that case we had better push on for the Scollays at once and see what she means." "You don't think it's a trap?" asked my uncle. Jack Whiteclett smiled slightly. The idea of the Navy pausing to weigh the risk appeared to amuse him. "We must take our chance," he said briefly. "We've both got our shooting irons." "And so have I," I added, "and certainly _I_ am going to the Scollays. You can trust Miss Rendall!" "You can that!" said the doctor heartily. "And if you don't mind I'll come with you." I saw doubt in my uncle's eye and put in quickly. "Certainly, doctor! We may all be needed. Come on!" It was quite dark, and mortal cold; the road was frozen hard and the nor'east wind swept over it without a break from wall or hedge-row. We all four trotted for a little to get up our circulation and then settled down to a fast five-mile-an-hour walk. About half the distance had been covered when I first heard a little sound ahead. "What's that!" I exclaimed, and we stood still and listened. "Somebody running!" said my cousin. "Towards us?" asked Sir Francis. "Yes." Plainer and plainer sounded the pattering steps on the frozen road, and as they drew nearer I thought I could tell that they were light steps--a woman's or a boy's, they seemed. "Let's drop into the ditch and see who it is," whispered Jack. We broke, two of us to either side of the road, and I found myself with my uncle stooping in one ditch, with Jack and the doctor across the road in the other. Thus bent down, one could see objects against the sky more distinctly and in a moment I spied the runner dimly, pattering down the middle of the road straight for us. And then, in a few seconds, this runner gradually took shape and my eyes at last could see the swing of a skirt and thought they could even recognise the slim figure. I jumped up. "Wait!" muttered my uncle. "It's all right! We mustn't frighten her," I said. I came out into the middle of the road and saw the other three rising at the sides. The runner was barely twenty yards away by now and I heard her gasp as she stopped abruptly. "Miss Rendall?" I said. The next moment she had rushed up to me, her eyes sparkling, her voice coming in pants. "Mr. Merton!" she panted and then her eyes fell on the others. "They've come then--I'm so glad!--forgive me for wiring--but--look!" She handed me something small and long-shaped. It was a spectacle case. "Take them out!" she said. We were all four gathered round her now and I heard my uncle say, "Where's that torch of yours, Jack?" Then the flash of my cousin's electric torch fell on the spectacles and my heart leapt. "The tinted spectacles!" I cried.