wheelbarrow. They stared blankly at each other. And Trix was
far too flustered to realize that his stare was infinitely more amazed
than her own.

"You can't come through this way," said the man, decisive though
bewildered. His orders regarding the non-entrance of strangers had been
of the emphatic kind.

Trix's brain worked rapidly. The route before her must lead to safety,
and nothing, no power on earth, would take her back through the field
atop the wood. She was genuinely, quite genuinely too frightened. This is
by way of excuse, since here a regrettable fact must be recorded. Trix
gave vent to a sound closely resembling a sneeze. It was followed by one
brief sentence.

"There's someone at the gate," was what the man heard.

Again amazement was written on his face. He turned towards the gate. Trix
fled past him.

"I couldn't go back," she insisted to herself, as she vanished round the
corner of a big green-house. "And I _did_ say 'isn't there' even if it
was mixed up with a sneeze. And wherever have I seen that man's face
before?"

She whisked round another corner of the green-house, attempting no answer
to her query at the moment, ran down a long cinder path bordered by
cabbages and gooseberry bushes, and bolted through another door in
another wall. And here Trix found herself in an orchard, at the bottom of
which was a yew hedge wherein she espied a wicket gate. She made rapid
way towards it. And now she saw a big grey house facing her. There was no
mistaking it. Childhood's memories rushed upon her. It was Chorley Old
Hall.

Trix came through the wicket gate, and out upon a lawn, in the middle of
which was a great marble basin full of crystal water, from which rose a
little silver fountain. Before her was the big grey house, melancholy,
deserted-looking. The blinds were drawn down in most of the windows. It
had the appearance of a house in which death was present.

And then a spirit of curiosity fell upon her, a sudden strong desire to
see within the house, to go once more into the rooms where she had stood
in the old days, a small and somewhat frightened child.

There was not a soul in sight. Probably the man with the wheelbarrow had
not thought it worth while to pursue her. The garden appeared as deserted
as the house. Trix tip-toed cautiously towards it. She looked like a
kitten or a canary approaching a dead elephant.

To her left was a door. Quite probably it was locked; but then, by the
favour