resh and pleasant. Behind her lay green, round-topped hills, and in
front stretched the sea, smooth as glass, with a few small, white sails
gleaming in the distance. Innumerable rabbits kept scuttling past. One
small one came so near that she almost caught it with her hands, but it
dived away into its burrow in a moment. She brought out her sandwiches
and biscuits, and began to eat them. She was hungry already, and
thought wistfully of breakfast. The bread had gone rather dry and the
biscuits a little stale, but she enjoyed them, sitting on the hillside,
especially when she remembered all she had escaped from at St. Chad's.
She felt that, once back in dear old Ireland, her difficulties would be
nearly at an end, and she registered a solemn vow never to cross the
Channel again, except under the strictest compulsion. The last fragment
of biscuit having vanished, she got up and shook down the crumbs for
the birds; then, turning towards the hills, she struck a footpath which
she thought must surely lead in the right direction. Westhaven, though
twenty-five miles away by the winding coast road, or the railway, was
only twelve miles distant if she went, as the crow flies, over the
moors. The authorities at the College, she imagined, would never dream
of looking for her there. When they discovered her absence they would
probably suppose she had gone to Dunscar, and would enquire at the
station, and search the main road; but, of course, nobody would have
seen her, and there would be no clue to her whereabouts.

She was so pleased to have such a good start that she felt almost in
high spirits, and strode along at a fair pace, keenly enjoying the
unwonted sense of freedom. It was very lonely on the moors, and not
even a cottage was to be seen. The path was hardly more than a sheep
track, sometimes nearly effaced with grass, and she had to trace it as
best she could. After some hours she began to grow tired and
desperately hungry again. She wondered how she was to manage anything
in the way of lunch; then, hailing with delight the sight of a small
farm nestling in a hollow between two hills, she turned her steps at
once in that direction. She had a sixpence and two pennies in her
pocket, and thought that she might perhaps be able to buy some food.

The farm, on nearer acquaintance, proved a rather dirty and
dilapidated-looking place. Honor picked her way carefully through the
litter in the yard, and was about to knock at the door,