challenge he did not
accept it. He had barred himself in once more behind an impenetrable
wall of unresponsiveness. His gaze was once more obscure and bovine. All
hint of violence was gone from his bearing. Only solid force
remained--the force that drove the boat strongly, unerringly, through
the golden-crested waves.

"If you're going to do a picture of Columbine," he said slowly, "I hope
it'll be a good one."

"It will probably be--great," said Knight, and flicked some ash from his
sleeve with the complacent air of a man who has accomplished his
purpose.

CHAPTER VI

THE MIDSUMMER MOON

It was very late that night, just as the first long rays of a full moon
streamed across a dreaming sea, that the door that led out of the
conservatory at The Ship softly opened, and a slim figure, clad in a
long, dark garment, flitted forth. Neither to right nor left did it
glance, but, closing the door without sound, slipped out over the grass
almost as if it moved on wings, and so down to the beach-path that wound
steeply to the shore.

The tide was rising with the moon; the roar of it swelled and sank like
the mighty breathing of a giant. The waters shone in the gathering light
in a vast silver shimmer almost too dazzling for the eye to endure. In
another hour it would be as light as day. A few dim clouds were floating
over the stars, filmy wisps that had escaped from the ragged edges of a
dark curtain that had veiled the sun before its time. The breeze that
had blown them free wandered far overhead; below, especially on the
shore, it was almost tropically warm, and no breath of air seemed to
stir.

Swiftly went the flitting figure, like a brown moth drawn by the
glitter of the moonlight. There was no other living thing in sight.

All the lights of Spear Point village had gone out long since. Rufus's
cottage, with its slip of garden on the shelf of the cliff, was no more
than a faint blur of white against the towering sandstone behind. No
light had shone there all the evening, for the daylight had not died
till ten, and he was often in bed at that hour. The fishing fleet would
be out again with the dawn if the weather held, or even earlier; and the
hours of sleep were precious.

Down on the rocks on the edge of the sleeping pool a grey shadow lurked
amidst darker shadows. A faint scent of cigarette smoke hung about the
silver beach--a drifting suggestion intangible as the magic of the
night.

Could it have bee