Jones--the man who's selling newspapers--and he
says nobody has come out from there yet answering to the description of
the fellow we want."

With that he left her, and, turning his back, began operations on a
round bed already fairly full of lobelias and geraniums. Lorraine, with
all her attention concentrated on the door of No. 27, worked
abstractedly. She thought afterwards that, if any of the ratepayers of
St. Cyr had taken the trouble to watch her gardening operations, they
would have decided that girls on the land were certainly not worth their
salt. She raked, and weeded, and picked up a few dead twigs, and scraped
some moss off the path with a trowel, turning her head every other
moment to peep through the railings. Once the door of No. 27 opened, and
she held her breath, but it was only a lady who came out with a little
child. Was this mysterious foreigner really in the house? He might have
escaped by a back way, or have gone off in some disguise, in which case
all her waiting would be in vain. Hour after hour passed by. The night
at the cove and the agitation of the early morning had made her very
tired, but she stuck grimly to her job. She was hungry, too, for it was
nearly three o'clock, and she had eaten nothing since breakfast. The
detective, who had been pottering about the flower-beds, sauntered
carelessly up to her as if to direct her work.

"Can you hold out any longer?" he asked under his breath.

"I'll try!" she answered pluckily.

"I'll send a boy to buy you some buns. I expect, after a night out, the
fellow's sleeping. There's no knowing what time he may choose to take a
walk. The only thing is to stick it as long as you can."

The buns arrived in due course, delivered in a paper bag by a small boy.
Lorraine felt a little better after eating them, but her task of waiting
and watching had grown irksome in the extreme. She hated that patch of
ground behind the railings. She felt that she would remember the look of
the brown soil for the rest of her life. The market-hall clock chimed
the quarters. The distance between the chimes seemed interminable. She
had never realised that fifteen minutes could be so long. Four o'clock
struck, then the time dragged on till half-past, then a quarter to five.

"I believe I'll faint or do something silly if I stay here much longer!"
thought Lorraine. "I wish my legs wouldn't shake in such an idiotic
manner!"

Five o'clock sounded from the tower of the market