I glanced at my watch and found it already a quarter-past three. But nobody was yet in sight. Probably Dawnay was standing concealed somewhere behind the hedge in order to satisfy himself that the coast was quite clear before approaching me. Behind, at some distance away, I heard the hum of an approaching motor-car, and, stepping to the side of the road, prepared to be suffocated by the thick white dust. The car swung through the village and rushed up the hill, but as it came behind me slowed down, until it passed me at quite a slow pace. Then I saw it was a powerful limousine, painted and upholstered in stone-grey, and within sat a woman alone. A few yards in front of me it stopped dead, and the woman leaned out of the door, when, to my utter amazement, I recognised her to be the same pretty young girl whom I had seen in Highgate Cemetery--the mysterious person who had so tenderly placed fresh flowers upon the grave of Melvill Arnold. "Excuse me!" she exclaimed, addressing me in a musical voice, as she opened the door. "I believe you are Mr Kemball, are you not?" "That certainly is my name," I said, raising my straw hat instinctively. "Well, I--I've come here to meet you," she laughed merrily. "Would you come inside, and then I can tell you all." So at her invitation I got in beside her, when the ear moved off swiftly again, and next moment we were swinging along towards Northampton, the driver evidently having already received his instructions. "I suppose I ought to explain, Mr Kemball, that Mr Harvey Shaw, the gentleman known to you as Dawnay, deemed it wiser not to come and meet you in person, because--well--" and she laughed sweetly, displaying even rows of pearly teeth. "I think you probably realise the reason." "Fully," I answered, quite taken aback by the ruddiness of her appearance. "But I had suspicion as I came along of a motor-cyclist who stopped before the inn. He is a man I have seen somewhere before." "Oh, he is a friend. He is there as scout for us," she said. "He has been watching you, and has signalled that all is clear, and so we may proceed without fear. Mr Shaw has asked me to take you to him." "Where is he?" "At Rockingham, beyond Kettering," was her reply, and as she turned her splendid brown eyes upon me, I judged her to be about nineteen or twenty, and saw that hers was a face more perfect in its beauty than ever I had before gazed upon. Her sombre black heightened the pallor of her complexion, yet her lips were full and red, her soft cheeks dimpled and perfect in their contour, while her large splendid eyes revealed an inexpressible sweetness and charm. From the first moment I realised that she was full of good-humour, with a bright, cheerful disposition, and yet quiet of manner and full of exquisite refinement. The expression in her great wide-open eyes was perhaps just a trifle too shrewd, and she seemed, as I began to chat with her, possessed of a ready wit and a quaint philosophy.