been fogged up this morning !" he said
slowly after a moment's pause. "How strange it all is. Do you know
that I was going up to town next week to hunt up _you_, of all people?
Do you remember anything of my father's death?"

"We don't talk about it," said Leonie quietly, and the man looked at
her with a sudden questioning in the steady eyes.

"I am taking on his work, you know, specialising in the brain. I have
got through all my exams quite decently, thanks, I think, to his
wonderful notes, have travelled a bit in the east, and before settling
down intended to go to India--what for do you think?"

Leonie shook her head. "Holiday?"

"Er--yes, almost. You know I simply _loved_ my father, and his very
last entry in his book of notes was about _you_. One line was this:
'Most interesting--shall go to India and find the ayah.' He died of
heart failure, you know, and he must have written the last line before
he died--it is: 'The answer to the problem concerning Leonie Hetth is
in the third volume upon----' There was nothing after that--I thought
he would be awfully pleased if I carried out his last wishes, and meant
to hunt you up and see if you were still--er--bothered with dreams and
then----"

He stopped short as Leonie leapt to her feet and ran back from a wave
which had most unexpectedly swirled upon her from behind a rock.

"Quick!" she laughed, "quick--the tide will be in. Where's the dog?"

The dog was cavorting with a crab in a pool.

"Jingles!" sternly admonished his master, who was heaving everything
pell-mell into his haversack. "By the way, what became of Jingles the
first?"

A shadow crept into Leonie's eyes as she thought of the pain and
disaster she invariably seemed to bring to those she loved most.

"He--he was run over--it was my fault, I whistled him across the road
and a car caught him. If we hurry," she continued, "we shall be in
time for tea--Auntie will love to see you again!"

"Oh! of course--I'd almost forgotten her--will she?"

CHAPTER XVII

"He that rebuketh a wicked man getteth
himself a blot!"--_The Bible_.

By all the ill-luck in the world Sir Walter Hickle was sitting in the
patch called the garden, turning a small parcel elatedly over and over
in his pocket, as Leonie, and her companion, and the dog came sliding
down the hill towards the cottage.

For the time being Leonie had totally forgotten the proceedings of the
night before, which had metamorph