of seriousness.

"You know that you ought to be saying that to some Gretchen away across
that terrible North Sea," she laughed.

"There is no Gretchen who has ever made my heart shake as you do," he
whispered.

She picked up her hat and sighed.

"Really," she said, "I think things are quite complicated enough as they
are. I am in a flutter all day long, as it is, about your mission here
and your real identity. I simply could not include a flirtation amongst
my excitements."

"I have never flirted," he assured her gravely.

"Wise man," she pronounced, rising to her feet. "Come, let us go and
help Helen pick leaves. She is scratching her fingers terribly, and I'm
sure you have a knife. A dear, economical creature, Helen," she added,
as they strolled along. "I am perfectly certain that those are destined
to adorn my dining-table, and, with chrysanthemums at sixpence each,
you can't imagine how welcome they are. Come, produce the knife, Mr.
Lessingham."

The knife was forthcoming, and presently they all turned their faces
homeward. Philippa arrested both her companions on the outskirts of
the wood, and pointed to the red-tiled little town, to the sombre,
storm-beaten grey church on the edge of the cliff, to the peaceful
fields, the stretch of gorse-sprinkled common, and the rolling stretch
of green turf on the crown of the cliffs. Beyond was the foam-flecked
blue sea, dotted all over with cargo steamers.

"Would one believe," she asked satirically, "that there should be scope
here in this forgotten little spot for the brains of a--Mr. Lessingham!"

"Remember that I was sent," he protested. "The error, if error there be,
is not mine."

"And after all," Helen reminded them both, "think how easily one may be
misled by appearances. You couldn't imagine anything more honest than
the faces of the villagers and the fishermen one sees about, yet do you
know, Mr. Lessingham, that we were visited by burglars last night?"

"Seriously?" he asked.

"Without a doubt. Of course, Mainsail Haul is an invitation to thieves.
They could get in anywhere. Last night they chose the French windows and
seem to have made themselves at home in the library."

"I trust," Lessingham said, "that they did not take anything of value?"

"They took nothing at all," Philippa sighed. "That is the humiliating
part of it. They evidently didn't like our things."

"How do you know that you had burglars, if they took nothing away?"
Lessingham en