d fumbling there.
Remember you are angry at being disturbed. Send them away, whoever they
are. Look sharp! They are going to ring again. Can't you hear that
beastly bell-wire quivering?"

Cecil set his teeth, turned the huge key, and pulled back the heavy
door. He gave a little gasp of astonishment. It was a woman who stood
there. He held out his electric torch and stepped back with a sharp
exclamation.

"Kate!" he cried. "What on earth are you doing here at this hour? What
do you mean by ringing the bell like that?"

The girl stepped into the hall.

"Close the door," she said. "The wind will blow the pictures off the
walls, and I can scarcely hear you speak."

Cecil obeyed at once.

"Light a lamp," she said. "It is not fair that you should have all the
light. I want to see your face too."

"But Kate," Cecil interrupted, "why did you come like this? Why did you
not--"

She interrupted.

"Never mind," she answered sternly. "Perhaps I did not come to see you
at all. Light the lamp. There is something I have to say to you."

Forrest stepped forward from the obscurity and struck a match. The girl
showed no signs of fear at his coming. As the lamp grew brighter she
looked at him steadfastly.

"So this is the reason we are waked up in the middle of the night,"
Forrest remarked, with a smile which somehow or other seemed to lose
its suggestiveness. "A little affair of this sort, eh, Mr. Cecil? Why
don't you teach the young lady a simpler way of summoning you than by
that infernal bell?"

Still Kate did not reply. She was standing with her back to the oak
table in the centre of the hall, and the men, who were both watching
her covertly, were conscious of a certain significance in her attitude.
Her black hair was tossed all over her face; from its tangled web her
eyes seemed to gleam with a steady inimical gaze. Her dress of dark red
stuff was splashed in places with the salt water, and her feet were
soaking. With her left hand she clasped the table; her right seemed
hidden in the folds of her skirt.

"What do you want, Kate?" Cecil asked at last. "What do you mean by
coming here like this? If you want to see me you know how, without
arousing the whole household at this time of night."

"You are not fool enough," Kate said calmly, "to imagine that I came
to-night to listen to your lies. I came to know whom it is that you are
keeping hidden away in the smugglers' room."

Neither man answered. They looked at o