She had not to wait long. And by the time the doctor had come, examined the patient, and reported that the victim was suffering from concussion of the brain and must be kept quiet, that she had sustained an injury to the right wrist and severe bruises, the old nurse had made a search of the girl’s pockets, and had discovered an opened letter in one of them directed to “Miss Rhoda Pembury” at an address in Deal. This was enough for Sir Robert, who telegraphed at once to the address, to the name of Pembury, to the effect that Miss Rhoda had met with a slight accident, but that she was safe and going on well. Within a couple of hours the girl’s father and mother had arrived at the Mill-house, and proved to be a London physician and his wife, who were staying at Deal with their family, of whom Rhoda was the eldest. They were deeply grateful to Sir Robert, who insisted that they should leave their daughter where she was until she was fully recovered, a suggestion which poor Mrs. Pembury, the harassed mother of half a dozen children, gratefully accepted, it being arranged that Dr. Pembury should cycle over every day to see how his daughter was getting on. Within a few days Rhoda, very pale still, and with deep dark lines under her large, plaintive, blue eyes, was sitting at the window of the room that had been assigned to her, permitted for the first time to leave her bed. She was a tall, thin slip of a girl, not yet fully developed, but languid and almost sickly of appearance by reason of the rapidity of her recent growth. At seventeen she was five feet seven inches in height, with a lean, fair-skinned face, a mass of pale golden hair that looked as if a silver veil had been thrown over it, and a look of listlessness that told of weakly health. She confessed to Bessie that she had only had her hair “up” within the last month, and that, in her present enfeebled condition, she preferred to leave it loose again, tied with a black ribbon, to the fatigue of doing it herself, or even of having it done for her. So that she looked like a child as she sat at the open window, with her white dressing-gown on, and her head thrown back against the pillows provided for her. In the garden below were two figures, upon whom her attention was fixed with interest so deep that Bessie watched her in furtive surprise, wondering at the look of vivid excitement which was making the blue eyes glow and the white skin flush. The old nurse looked out, and saw that the objects of the girl’s interest were Sir Robert Hadlow, sauntering in the grounds in his linen coat and broad-brimmed hat, and his handsome young ward, Jack Rotherfield, a tall, well-made man of two and twenty, whose dark-skinned, beardless face and curly black hair and dark eyes had earned him the reputation of the handsomest man in Kent.