e papers were
beginning to break into portraits of the missing girl. Karen became
remote, non-existent, more than dead, it seemed, when her face, like
that of some heroine of a newspaper novelette, gazed at one from the
breakfast-table. The first time that this happened, Madame von Marwitz,
flinging the sheet from her, had burst into a violent storm of weeping.

She sat, on the afternoon of the sixth day, in a sunny corner of the
lower terrace and turned the leaves of a book with a listless hand. She
was to be alone till dinner-time; Tallie had gone in to Helston by bus,
and she had the air of one who feels solitude at once an oppression and
a relief. She read little, raising her eyes to gaze unseeingly over the
blue expanses stretched beneath her or to look down as vaguely into the
eyes of Victor, who lay at her feet. The restless spirit of the house
had reached Victor. He lay with his head on his extended paws in an
attitude of quiescence; but his ears were pricked to watchfulness, his
eyes, as he turned them now and again up to his mistress, were troubled.
Aware of his glance, on one occasion, Madame von Marwitz stooped and
caressed his head, murmuring: "_Nous sommes des infortunes, hein, mon
chien._" Her voice was profoundly sad. Victor understood her. Slightly
thudding his tail he gave a soft responsive groan; and it was then,
while she still leaned to him and still caressed his head, that shrill,
emphatic voices struck on Madame von Marwitz's ear.

The gravelled nook where she sat, her garden chair, with its adjusted
cushions, set against a wall, was linked by ascending paths and terraces
to the cliff-path, and this again, though only through a way overgrown
with gorse and bramble, to the public coast-guards' path along the
cliff-top. The white stones that marked the way for the coast-guards
made a wide _detour_ behind Madame von Marwitz's property and this
nearer egress to the cliff was guarded by a large placard warning off
trespassers. Yet, looking in the direction of the voices, Madame von
Marwitz, to her astonishment, saw that three ladies, braving the
interdict, were actually marching down in single file upon her.

One was elderly and two were young; they wore travelling dress, and, as
she gazed at them in chill displeasure, the features of the first became
dimly familiar to her. Where, she could not have said, yet she had seen
that neat, grey head before, that box-like hat with its depending veil,
that fi