he resisted the first impulse of the active side of his
temperament, and did not instantly tug at the rope.

Instead, he shouted:--

"Hi, Bates!"

An answering hail came from behind a screen of laurels on the right of
the house. There lay the stables, and Bates would surely be grooming the
cob which supplied a connecting link between The Hollies and the railway
for the neighboring market-town.

Bates came, a sturdy block of a man who might have been hewn out of a
Sussex oak. His face, hands, and arms were the color of oak, and he moved
with a stiffness that suggested wooden joints.

Evidently, he expected an order for the dogcart, and stood stock still
when he reached the lawn. But Grant, who had gathered his wits, summoned
him with crooked forefinger, and Bates jerked slowly on.

"What hev' ye done to yer face, sir?" he inquired.

Grant was surprised. He expected no such question.

"So far as I know, I've not been making any great alteration in
it," he said.

"But it's all covered wi' blood," came the disturbing statement.

A handkerchief soon gave evidence that Bates was not exaggerating.
Miss--or is it Madam?--Dorothy Perkins can scratch as well as look sweet,
and a thorn had opened a small vein in Grant's cheek which bled to a
surprising extent.

"Oh, it is nothing," he said. "I remember now--a rose shoot caught me as
I went back into the dining-room a moment ago. I shouted for you to come
and see _this_."

Soon the two were examining the rope and the staple.

"Now who put _that_ there?" said Bates, not asking a question but rather
stating a thesis.

"It was not here yesterday," commented his master, accepting all that
Bates's words implied.

"No, sir, that it wasn't. I was a-cuttin' the lawn till nigh bed-time,
an' it wasn't there then."

Grant was himself again. He stooped and grabbed the rope.

"Suppose we solve the mystery," he said.

"No need to dirty your hands, sir," put in Bates. "Let I haul 'un in."

In a few seconds the oaken tint in his face grew many shades lighter.

"Good Gawd!" he wheezed. At the end of the rope was the body of a woman.

There are few more distressing objects than a drowned corpse. On
that bright June morning a dreadful apparition lost little of its
grim repulsiveness because the body was that of a young and
good-looking woman.

If one searched England it would be difficult to find two men of
differing temperaments less likely to yield to the stress of even