rattle of an engine and some men's voices caught her ear. The
plough, sure enough! The sound of it was becoming common in the
country-side. Then as the mist thinned and drifted she saw the thing
plain--the puffing engine, one man driving and another following,
while in their wake ran the black glistening furrow, where the grass
had been.

And here was the gate. Pamela stood open-mouthed. Where were the
elaborate defences and barricades of which rumour had been full the
night before? The big gate swung idly on its hinges. And in front of
it stood two men placidly smoking, in company with the village
policeman. Not a trace of any obstruction--no hurdles, no barbed
wire, only a few ends of rope lying in the road.

Then, looking round, she perceived old Perley, with a bag of ferrets
in his hand, emerging from the mist, and she ran up to him
breathlessly.

'So they've come, Perley! Was it they forced the gate?'

Perley scratched his head with his free hand.

'Well, it's an uncommon queer thing, Miss--but I can't tell yer who
opened them gates! I come along here about seven o'clock this
mornin', and the fog was so thick yo couldn't see nothin' beyond a
yard or two. But when I got up to the gates, there they were open,
just as you see 'em now. At first I thought there was summat
wrong--that my eyes wasn't what they used to was. But they was all
right.'

'And you saw the gates shut last night?'

'Barred up, so as you couldn't move 'em, Miss!--not without a
crowbar or two, an' a couple of men. I thowt it was perhaps some
village chaps larkin' as had done it. But it ain't none o' them. It
beats me!'

Pamela looked at the two men smoking by the gate--representatives,
very likely, of the Inspection Sub-Committee. Should she go up and
question them? But some inherited instinct deterred her. She was
glad the country should have the land and the corn. She had no
sympathy with her father. And yet all the same when she actually saw
Demos the outsider forcibly in possession of Mannering land, the
Mannering spirit kicked a little. She would find out what had
happened from some of their own people.

So after watching the County Council plough for a while as it clove
its way up and down the park under the struggling sun which was
gradually scattering the fog--her young intelligence quite aware all
the time of the significance of the sight--she turned back towards
the house. And presently, advancing to meet her, she perceived th