ady Arabella had instructed her solicitors to hurry on with the
conveyance of Diana's Grove, so no time was lost in letting Adam Salton
have formal possession of the estate. After his interview with Sir
Nathaniel, he had taken steps to begin putting his plan into action. In
order to accumulate the necessary amount of fine sea-sand, he ordered the
steward to prepare for an elaborate system of top-dressing all the
grounds. A great heap of the sand, brought from bays on the Welsh coast,
began to grow at the back of the Grove. No one seemed to suspect that it
was there for any purpose other than what had been given out.

Lady Arabella, who alone could have guessed, was now so absorbed in her
matrimonial pursuit of Edgar Caswall, that she had neither time nor
inclination for thought extraneous to this. She had not yet moved from
the house, though she had formally handed over the estate.

Adam put up a rough corrugated-iron shed behind the Grove, in which he
stored his explosives. All being ready for his great attempt whenever
the time should come, he was now content to wait, and, in order to pass
the time, interested himself in other things--even in Caswall's great
kite, which still flew from the high tower of Castra Regis.

The mound of fine sand grew to proportions so vast as to puzzle the
bailiffs and farmers round the Brow. The hour of the intended cataclysm
was approaching apace. Adam wished--but in vain--for an opportunity,
which would appear to be natural, of visiting Caswall in the turret of
Castra Regis. At last, one morning, he met Lady Arabella moving towards
the Castle, so he took his courage _a deux mains_ and asked to be allowed
to accompany her. She was glad, for her own purposes, to comply with his
wishes. So together they entered, and found their way to the
turret-room. Caswall was much surprised to see Adam come to his house,
but lent himself to the task of seeming to be pleased. He played the
host so well as to deceive even Adam. They all went out on the turret
roof, where he explained to his guests the mechanism for raising and
lowering the kite, taking also the opportunity of testing the movements
of the multitudes of birds, how they answered almost instantaneously to
the lowering or raising of the kite.

As Lady Arabella walked home with Adam from Castra Regis, she asked him
if she might make a request. Permission having been accorded, she
explained that before she finally left Diana's