way of the shore.
Biding with Tom and Jill, as may be imagined, was a series of
competitive exercises, rather than a straightforward promenade. Tom was
an excellent rough horseman; and Jill, when Mr Armstrong was at hand,
was not the young lady to stick at anything. They had tried handicaps,
water-jumps, hurdles, and were about to start for a ding-dong gallop
along the mile of hard strand which divided them from Maxfield, when the
tutor's eye detected, perched a little way up the cliff, the figure of a
young lady sketching.

"I'll start you two," said he, "I scratch for this race. Ride fair,
Tom; and Jill, give the mare her head when you get past the boulders. I
shall go back by the downs. Are you ready now? Pull in a bit, Tom.
Now--off you go!"

Not waiting to watch the issue of this momentous contest, he turned to
where Rosalind sat, and reining up at the foot of her perch, dismounted.

She came down to meet him, palette in hand.

"Mr Armstrong, I am so glad to see you. I want to speak to you
dreadfully. Are you in a great hurry?"

"Not at all. Brandram told me you were in trouble, and I was wondering
when and where I should have the opportunity of asking how I can help
you."

He tied his horse to a stake, and helped her back to her seat on the
cliff.

There was an awkward pause, which he occupied by examining her picture
with a critical air.

"Do you like it?" said she.

"I don't know. I'm no great judge. Do you?"

"I did, before you came. I'm not so sure now. Do sit down and let me
say what I want to say."

The tutor, with a flutter at his breast, sat meekly, keeping his eyes
still on the picture.

"Mr Armstrong, it's about Mr Ratman."

"So Brandram said. What of him?"

Rosalind told her father's story, except that she omitted any reference
to the desperate proposition for satisfying his claims.

"I am sure it is a fraud, or blackmail, or something of the sort. For
all that, he threatens to ruin father."

"What does the debt amount to?"

"Father spoke of thousands."

"Does the creditor offer no terms?"

Rosalind flushed, and looked round.

"None; that is, none that can be thought of for a moment."

"I understand," said the tutor, to whom the reservation was explicit
enough.

"The difficulty is, that he has disappeared. If we could find him I
would--"

"You would allow me to go to him," said the tutor. "No doubt the
opportunity will soon come. He wants money; he is b