ion Nan prepared to leave the room by this
very means. She was agile, and the sill of the window was only three
feet from the ground. It was through this opening that she had helped
Margaret Llewellen into her room on the first occasion that odd child
had visited her.

Nan jumped out, let the screen down softly, and hurried across the
unfenced yard to the road. She knew well enough when she reached the
public track, despite the darkness for the mirey clay stuck to her shoes
and made the walking difficult.

She flashed her lamp once, to get her bearings, and then set off down
the lane toward the swamp road. There was not a light in any house she
passed, not even in Mr. Fen Llewellen's cottage. "I guess Margaret's
fast asleep," murmured Nan, as she passed swiftly on.

The rain beat down upon the girl steadily, and Nan found it shivery
out here in the dark and storm. However, her reason for coming, Nan
conceived, was a very serious one. This was no foolish escapade.

By showing her light now and then she managed to follow the dark lane
without stepping off into any of the deep puddles which lay beside the
path. She came, finally, to the spot where Rafe had met her and Tom with
his lantern that evening. Here stood the great tree with a big hollow in
it, Margaret Llewellen's favorite playhouse.

For a moment Nan hesitated. The place looked so dark and there might be
something alive in the hollow.

But she plucked up courage and flashed her lamp into it. The white ray
played about the floor of the hollow. The other Llewellen children dared
not come here, for Margaret punished them if they disturbed anything
belonging to her.

What Nan was looking for was not in sight. She stepped inside, and
raised the torch. The rotting wood had been neatly scooped out, and
where the aperture grew smaller at the top a wide shelf had been made by
the ingenious Margaret. Nan had never been in this hide-out before.

"It must be here! It must be here!" she kept telling herself, and stood
on her tiptoes to feel along the shelf, which was above her head.

Nan discovered nothing at first. She felt along the entire length of the
shelf again. Nothing!

"I know better!" she almost sobbed. "My dear, beautiful."

She jumped up, feeling back on the shelf with her right hand. Her
fingers touched something, and it was not the rotting wood of the tree!

"It's there!" breathed the excited girl. She flashed her lamp around,
searching for somethi