ead of merely these four months, must pass
before her terrible sorrow could begin to dim. Indeed he felt sure
of it and concluded that he was reading an implication into this
pregnant sentence that she had never intended it to carry. He longed
to see her and was just planning how to do so, when chance offered
an opportunity.

* * * * *

Brendon was called to arrest two Russians, due to arrive at Plymouth
from New York upon a day in mid-December; and having identified them
and testified to their previous activities in England, he was
free for a while. Without sending any warning, he proceeded to
Dartmouth, put up there that night, and started, at nine o'clock on
the following morning, to walk to "Crow's Nest."

His heart beat hard and two thoughts moved together in it, for not
only did he intensely desire to see the widow, but also had a wish
to surprise the little community on the cliff for another reason.
Still some vague suspicion held his mind that Bendigo Redmayne might
be assisting his brother. The idea was shadowy, yet he had never
wholly lost it and more than once contemplated such a surprise visit
as he was now about to pay.

Suspicion, however, seemed to diminish as he ascended great heights
west of the river estuary; and when within the space of two hours he
had reached a place from which "Crow's Nest" could be seen, perched
between the cliff heights and a grey, wintry sea, nothing but the
anticipated vision of the woman held his mind.

He came ignorant of the startling events awaiting him, little
guessing how both the story of his secret dream and the chronicle of
the quarry crime were destined to be advanced by great incidents
before the day was done.

His road ran over the cliffs and about him swept brown and naked
fields under the winter sky. Here and there a mewing gull flew
overhead and the only sign of other life was a ploughman crawling
behind his horses with more sea fowl fluttering in his wake. Brendon
came at last to a white gate facing on the highway and found that he
had reached his destination. Upon the gate "Crow's Nest" was
written in letters stamped upon a bronze plate, and above it rose a
post with a receptacle for holding a lamp at night. The road to the
house fell steeply down and, far beneath, he saw the flagstaff and
the tower room rising above the dwelling. A bleakness and melancholy
seemed to encompass the spot on this sombre day. The wind sighed a