"Oh, sir!" said she, "here are fine words, and here's a curtsey to match them;" and spreading out her frock with each hand, she sank elaborately to the very ground. We walked for some while longer in the garden, without speech, and the girl's impertinence gradually slipped out of my mind. The sea murmured lazily upon the other side of the hedge, and I had full in view St. Helen's Island and the ruined church upon its summit. The south aisle of the church pointed towards the house, and through the tracery of a rude window I could see the sky. "I wonder who in the world can have visited the Abbey burial-ground and rifled that grave?" The question perplexed me more and more, and I wondered whether Helen could throw light upon it. So I asked her, but she bent her brows in a frown, and in a little she answered: "No, I can think of no one." I held out my hand to her. "This is good-bye," said I. "You go to-day?" she asked, but did not take my hand. "Yes, if I can find a ship to take me. I go to St. Helen's first. Can I borrow your boat; Dick will bring it back. I want to see that east window in the aisle." A few more words were said, and I promised to return, whether I found Cullen Mayle or not. And I did return, but sooner than I expected, for I returned that afternoon. CHAPTER XV THE LOST KEY IS FOUND It happened in this way. I took Dick Parmiter with me and sailed across to St. Helen's. We beached the boat on the sand near to the well and quarantine hut, and climbed up eastwards till we came to the hole which Glen's party had dug. The ground sloped away from the church in this direction; and as I stood on the edge of the hole with my face towards the side of the aisle, I could just see over the grass the broken cusp of the window. It was exactly opposite to me. It occurred to me, however, that Glen had measured the distance wrong. So I sent Dick in the boat across to Tresco to borrow a measure, and while he was away I examined the ground there around; but it was all covered with grass and bracken, which evidently had not been disturbed. Here and there were bushes of brambles, but, as I was at pains to discover, no search for the cross had been made beneath them. In the midst of my search Dick came back to me with a tape measure, and we set to work from the window of the church. The measure was for a few yards, so that when we had run it out to its full length, keeping ever in the straight line, it was necessary to fix some sort of mark in the ground, and start afresh from that; and for a mark I used a big iron key which I had in my pocket. Three chains brought us exactly to the hole which had been dug, and holding the key in my hand, I said: "They made no mistake. It is plain the plan was carelessly drawn." And Dick said to me: "That's the key of our cottage." I handed it to him to make sure. He turned it over in his hand.