They sat down together upon a fallen log; and out of an instinctive desire to break the tension of the spell that lay on him Dangelis lit a cigarette. He had smoked in silence for some moments, when Mr. Quincunx, who had been listening attentively, raised his hand. “Hark!” he said, “do you hear anything?” Across the stillness of the water came a low blood-curdling wail. It was hardly a human sound, and yet it was not like the voice of any bird or beast. It seemed to unsettle the drowsy natives of the spot; for a harsh twittering of sedge-birds answered it, and a great water-rat splashed down into the lake. “God! they were right then,” whispered the American. “They spoke of some mad girl living down here, but I did not believe them. It seemed incredible that such a thing should be allowed. Quick, my friend!--we ought to warn those girls at once and get them away. This is not the sort of thing for them to hear.” They both rose and listened intently, but the sound was not repeated; only a hot gust of wind coming, as it were, out of the lake itself, went quivering through the reeds. “I don’t imagine,” said Mr. Quincunx calmly, “that _your_ young lady will be much alarmed. I fancy she has less fear of this kind of thing than that water-rat we heard just now. It’ll terrify Lacrima, though. But I understand that your charming sweetheart gets a good deal of amusement from causing people to feel terror!” Dangelis was so accustomed to the plain-spoken utterances of the hermit of Dead Man’s Lane that he received this indictment of his enchantress with complete equanimity. “All the same,” he remarked, “I think we’d better go and meet them, if you know the direction they’re coming. It’s not a very pleasant proposition, any way, to face escaped lunatics in a place like this.” “I tell you,” muttered Mr. Quincunx crossly, “your darling Gladys is coming here for no other reason than to hear that girl’s cries. The more they terrify Lacrima, the better she’ll be pleased.” “I don’t know about Lacrima,” answered Dangelis. “I know that devil of a noise will scare _me_ if I hear it again.” Mr. Quincunx did not reply. With his hand on his companion’s arm he was once more listening intently. At the back of his mind was gradually forming a grim remote wish that some overt act and palpable revelation of Gladys Romer’s interesting character might effect a change of heart in the citizen of Ohio. Such a wish had been obscurely present in his brain ever since they started on this expedition; and now that the situation was developing, it took a more vivid shape. “I believe,” he remarked at last, “I hear them coming down the path. Listen! It’s on the other side of the pond,--over there.” He pointed across the water to the left-hand corner of the lake. It was from the right-hand corner, where the keeper’s cottage stood, that the poor mad girl’s voice had proceeded.