hat the yacht had not been berthed at Lousey Hard until
between two and three o'clock in the morning, and that no guest had slept
until after the job was done, though more than one had tried to sleep. It
was also true that in consequence the saloon breakfast had been abrogated,
that even the saloon lunch lacked vicacity, and that at least one passenger
was at that moment dozing in his cabin. But not on account of fatigue and
somnolence was Audrey remaining in the saloon instead of taking the
splendid summer afternoon on deck under the awning. She felt neither tired
nor sleepy. The true secret was that she feared the crowd of village
idlers, quidnuncs, tattlers and newsmongers who all day gazed from Lousey
Hard at the wonder-yacht.

Examining the line of faces as well as she could through portholes, she
recognised nearly every one of them, and was quite sure that every one of
them would recognise her face. To go ashore or to stay prominently on deck
would, therefore, be to give away her identity and to be forced, sooner or
later, to admit that she had practised a long and naughty deception. She
could conceive some of those villagers greeting her loudly from the Hard if
she should appear; for Essex manners were marked by strange freedoms. Her
situation would be terrible. It, in fact, was terrible. Risks surrounded
her like angry dogs. Musa, for example, ought surely to have noticed that
the estuary in which the yacht lay was the same estuary which he had seen
not long before from the garden of the house stated by Audrey to be her
own, and he ought to have commented eagerly on the marvellous coincidence.
Happily, he had not yet done so--no doubt because he had spent most of the
time in bed. If and when he did so there would naturally be an excited
outcry and a heavy rain of amazed questions which simply could not be
answered.

"I am going almost at once to call on my little friend Audrey Moze, at
Flank Hall," said Madame Piriac. "The house looks delicious from the deck.
If you will come up I will show it to you. It is precisely like the picture
post card which the dear little one sent to me last year. Are you ready to
come with me?"

"But, darling, hadn't you better go alone?"

"But certainly not, darling! You are not serious. The meeting will be very
agitating. With a third person, however, it will be less so. I count on you
absolutely, as I have said already. Nay, I insist. I invoke your
friendship."

"She may be ou