Black Brady in his place and pray for Molly's speedy return.

"Well, Brady," she said coldly, "I imagine Mr. Kent's a good enough
driver to bring Miss Selwyn back safely. I don't think there's anything
to worry about."

Brady stared at her out of his sullen eyes.

"You haven't understood, miss," he said doggedly. "Mr. Kent isn't for
bringing Miss Molly back again. They'd their luggage along wi' 'em in
the car, and Mr. Kent, he stopped at the 'Cliff' to have the tank filled
up and took a matter of another half-dozen cans o' petrol with 'im."

In an instant the whole dreadful significance of the thing leaped into
Sara's mind. Molly had bolted--run away with Lester Kent!

It was easy enough now, in the flashlight kindled by Brady's slow,
inexorable summing up of detail, to see the drift of recent happenings,
the meaning of each small, disconcerting fact that added a fresh link to
the chain of probability.

Molly's unwonted secretiveness; her strange, uncertain moods; her
embarrassment at finding she was expected at Greenacres when she had
presumably agreed to meet Lester Kent in Oldhampton; and, last of all,
the sudden "cold" which had developed coincidentally with her father's
absence from home and which had secured her freedom from any kind
of supervision for the afternoon. And the opportunity of clinching
arrangements--probably already planned and dependent only on a
convenient moment--had been provided by her errand to the post office to
send off her father's telegram--it being as easy to send two telegrams
as one.

The colour ebbed slowly from Sara's face as full realization dawned
upon her, and she swayed a little where she stood. With rough kindliness
Brady stretched out a grimy hand and steadied her.

"'Ere, don't' take on, miss. They won't get very far. I didn't, so to
speak, _fill_ the petrol tank"--with a grin--"and there ain't more than
two o' they cans I slipped aboard the car as 'olds more'n air. The rest
was empties"--the grin widened enjoyably--"which I shoved in well to
the back. Mr. Kent won't travel eighty miles afore 'e calls a 'alt, I
reckon."

Sara looked at Brady's cunning, kindly face almost with affection.

"Why did you do that?" she asked swiftly.

"I've owed Mr. Lester Kent summat these three years," he answered
complacently. "And I never forgets to pay back. I owed you summat,
too, Miss Tennant. I haven't forgot how you spoke up for me when I was
catched poachin'."

Sara held out