Graeme\'s first thought was that he was dreaming. He blinked his eyes to make sure they were not playing him false.

If she had disappeared at that moment, he would have sworn to hallucinations and the visibility of spirits to the day of his death.

But she did not disappear, and Punch proved her no spirit by stalking gravely up to give her welcome. Without taking her startled eyes off Graeme, she dropped one white hand on to the great brown head and the diamonds sprinkled her dove-coloured dress.

"Mr. Graeme!" she said, in a voice which very fully expressed her own doubts as to his reality also.

"Mar—Miss Brandt? ... Is it possible?"

They had both drawn nearer, he along the broad gravel walk, she along the narrow path between the eucalyptus trees.

"Are you quite sure you are real?" he asked breathlessly, and for answer she laughed and stretched a friendly hand towards him.

He took it with shining eyes, and then bent suddenly and kissed it gently, and his eyes were shining still more brightly as she drew it hastily away.

"But whatever brings you here?" she asked abruptly.

"We\'re just out of the sea,"—and the joy of the sea and the morning, and this greatest thing of all, was in his face.

"But why are you here? What are you doing here?"

"Doing? We\'re living here."

"Did you know I was here? How——?" she began, with a puzzled wrinkle of the fair white brow, and stopped.

"I did not know. I wish I had."

"If you did not know, how—why——?"

"If I had known perhaps I should not have dared to follow you. On the whole I\'m glad I did not know."

"I don\'t understand.... How long have you been here?"

"Just four weeks," he said, with a smile at thought of the blackness of those four weeks now that he stood in the sunshine.

"Four weeks! Then you mean—you mean that I—that we—followed——"

"In the mere matter of time, yes!—and of place too," he laughed." For you turned me out of my rooms."

"Do you mean to say you are the Bogey-Man?"

"Well,—no one ever called me so to my face before, but I\'m bound to say I\'ve felt uncommonly like one for the past four or five weeks."

"Come with me," she said hastily. "I must put this right at once, or Hennie——" and she turned and went through the gap in the hedge.

"Put what right?" he asked, as he followed.

"Oh—you," she said hastily.

"I\'m all right—now. And who is Hennie?"

"My friend Miss Penny—"

"I beg your pardon. I thought you said Hennie."

"Henrietta Penny. She was at school with me. We are taking care of one another."

They had come to the forecourt of the cottage.

"Hen!" cried Margaret. The window was wide open, but the blind was discreetly down.

"Hello, Chum!" came back in muffled tones. "What\'s up now? Been and got yourself lost again?"

"Come out, dear. I want you."

"Half a jiff, old girl. Give a fellow a chance with his back hair. You had first tub this morning, remember." At which Graeme\'s eyes twinkled in unison with Margaret\'s.

"There\'s a gentleman waiting to see you, dear," said Margaret, to prevent any further revelations.

"A what?"—and there followed a clatter of falling implements as though a sudden start had sent them flying. "Wretch!—to upset one like that! It\'s that big brown dog, I suppose. I know you, my child!"

Then the blind whirled up and a merry face, in a cloud of dishevelled hair, looked out, a pair of horrified eyes rested momentarily on Graeme, and the blind rattled down again with something that sounded like a muffled feminine objurgation.

And presently the inner door opened and Miss Penny came forth demurely, and bowed distantly in the direction of Margaret and Graeme.

She was of average height but inclined to plumpness, and so looked smaller than Margaret; and she had no great pretensions to beauty, Graeme thought—but then he was biassed for life and incapable of free and impartial judgment—save such as might be found in a very frank face given to much laughter, a rather wide mouth and nice white teeth, abundant dark hair and a pair of challenging brown eyes which now, getting over their first confusion—and finding herself at all events fully dressed, wherein she had the advantage of him—rested with much appreciation on the young man in front of her.

The salt water was still in his hair, and the discrepancies in his hasty attire were but partly hidden by the damp towel round his neck. Nevertheless he was very good to look upon. His moustache showed crisp against the healthy brown of his face; his hair, short as it was, had a natural ripple which sea-water could not reduce; and his eyes were brimming with the new joy of life and repressed laughter. Miss Penny liked the looks of h............