er face in its light and read:

Am sending picture of George Florey, brother of murdered
man. Watch him closely. Am writing.

It wasn't an urgent message. The picture would have reached me, just the
same, and I had every intention of watching closely the man I believed
was the dead butler's brother. Yet I was glad enough she had seen fit
to bring it to me. We would have our moment together, after all.

What was said beside that craggy, mysterious margin, what words were all
but obscured by the sound of the tide-waves breaking against the natural
wall of rock, what oaths were given, and what breathless, incredible
happiness came upon us as if from the far stars, has little part in the
working out of the mystery of Kastle Krags. Certain moments passed,
indescribably fleet, and certain age-old miracles were reenacted. Life
doesn't yield many such moments. But then--not many are needed to pay
for life.

After a while we told each other good-night, and I scratched a match to
look again into her face. Some way, I had expected the miraculous
softening of every tender line and the unspeakable luster in her blue
eyes that the flaring light revealed. They were merely part of the night
and its magic, and the joy I had in the sight was incomparable with any
other earthly thing. But what surprised me was a curious look of
intentness and determination, almost a zealot's enthusiasm in her face,
that the match-light showed and the darkness concealed again.

She went away, as quietly as she had come. Whether Weldon had seen her I
did not know. There was something else I didn't know, either, and the
thought of it was a delight through all the long hours of my watch.
Edith Nealman had worlds of common sense. I wondered how she had been
able to convince herself that the message was of such importance that
she needs must carry it through the darkness of the gardens to me at
once.

CHAPTER XXIII

The tide reached its full, shortly after two o'clock, and then began to
ebb. Almost at once the little waves of the lagoon smoothed out, they
lapped no more against the craggy margin, and the water lay like a sheet
of gray glass. I had seen the same transformation on several previous
occasions, but to-night it seemed to get hold of me as never before.

Seemingly it partook of a miraculous quality to-night--as if winds had
been suddenly stilled by a magician's art. The water was of course
flowing out between the crevices of