o, until her
departure to Trenby Hall made it no longer necessary. She hoped he
would not stay long at Mallow. It would be unbearable to meet him day
after day--to feel his eyes resting upon her with the same cool gravity
to which he had compelled them this morning, to pretend that he and she
meant no more to one another than any two other chance guests at a
country house.

Nan's thoughts drove her swiftly down the steep incline which descended
towards the cove and, arriving at its foot, she stopped, as everyone
must, to obtain the key of the castle from a near-by cottage. The old
dame who gave her the key--accepting a shilling in exchange with
voluble gratitude--impressed upon her the urgent necessity for
returning it on her way back.

"If you please, lady, I've lost more than one key with folks forgettin'
to return them," she explained.

"I won't forget," Nan assured her, and forthwith started to make her
way to the top of the great promontory on which stands all that still
remains of King Arthur's Castle--the fallen stones of an ancient
chapel, and a ruined wall enclosing a grassy space where sheep browse
peacefully.

Quitting the cottage and turning to the left, she bent her steps
towards a footbridge spanning a gap in the cliff side and, pausing at
the bridge, let her eyes rest musingly on the great, mysterious opening
picturesquely known as Merlin's Cave. The tide was coming in fast, and
she could hear the waves boom hollowly as they slid over its stony
floor, only to meet and fight the opposing rush of other waves from the
further end--since what had once been the magician's cave was now a
subterranean passage, piercing right through the base of the headland.

For a while Nan loitered on the bridge, gazing at the wild beauty of
the scene--the sombre cove where the inrushing waves broke in a smother
of spume on the beach, and above, to the left, the wind-scarred,
storm-beaten crag rising sheer and wonderful out of the turbulent sea
and crowned by those ancient walls about which clung so much of legend
and romance.

Perhaps the magic of old Merlin's enchantments still lingered there,
for as Nan stood silently absorbing the mysterious glamour of the
place, the petty annoyances of the day, the fret of Lady Gertrude's
unwelcoming reception of her, seemed to dwindle into insignificance.
They were only external things, after all. They could not mar the
loveliness of this mystic, legend-haunted corner of the