me."

"He's a little wonder," Montague muttered.

"Nothing to be done with him to-night," Hartwell growled. "Let's leave
the little blighter."

Jacob slept amazingly well. He was awakened by the sound of a soft and
insistent whistle below. He sprang up and looked through the aperture.
The wind had dropped in the night. Eastwards were long bars of amber
and mauve, piercing the faint mist. Below, Lady Mary scarcely rocked
in her boat.

"Well, dear guest," she called up, "how was the spare-room bed?"

"Hard," he admitted. "Never mind, I've slept like a top."

"Listen," she continued. "It's such a wonderful morning that I've
brought you quite a stock. No one comes in the room, do they?"

"They daren't," Jacob answered tersely.

"I'm sending you up some nails and string. What you can't eat or drink
now, you can let hang down. And listen. I'm sending you something else
up. Don't use it unless they get brutal."

"They're waiting for me to lose strength!" Jacob chuckled. "I never
felt so fit in my life. How high is it from this window?"

"Thirty feet."

"Why shouldn't I make a dive for it?" he suggested.

"Because there are sunken rocks everywhere around," she replied. "I
couldn't get here myself unless I knew the way. Now, then, get ready."

One by one, a flask of coffee, two packets of sandwiches, a small box
of nails and some string reached him, and last of all a small
revolver, fully charged.

"Got everything?" she asked.

"Rather!" he answered. "How is your hospitable father?"

"A little impatient," she answered. "He is going to sell you a couple
of thousand acres of moor and a tumble-down manse for thirty thousand
pounds."

"Is he?" Jacob asked. "Shall I be able to wear kilts and have a
bagpipe man?"

"There are no feudal rights," she told him. "Besides, I don't think
you'd look well in kilts."

"Well, there isn't going to be any thirty thousand pounds," Jacob
declared.

She took out her oars.

"I hope some day you'll make up to me for all this," she said. "I seem
to spend the whole of my time looking after you."

"If it weren't for that fellow Maurice!" Jacob called after her, as
she disappeared.

They left him alone that day until after luncheon, and Jacob began to
find the time hang heavily upon his hands. There was very little to
watch except the wheeling seagulls, now and then a distant steamer,
and the waves breaking upon the crag-strewn shore. Through the
landward aperture, the great