entatively, and then more surely, the gate was pushed wider
still, and the trim figure in the short skirt stood with bated breath in
the quiet garden. The coy retreat of Mr. Travers Nugent was beautifully
kept. Tall trees and winding shrubberies afforded a grateful shade, and
the well-shaven turf of the lawn was dotted with beds ablaze with
brilliant summer flowers. In the bright yellow of the gravel walks never
a weed showed. But it was past six, and the gardener who had wrought
all this perfection was not there to make trouble for Enid on the
threshold of her adventure.

Still without any definite plan except to "find out things," Miss Enid
softly shut the gate and advanced a few steps towards the house, taking
care to tread on the grass and not on the crunchy gravel. After all was
said and done she could trump up an excuse if she was discovered. Mr.
Nugent had always treated her with semi-paternal playfulness, and he
was, ostensibly at any rate, on amicable terms with her father.

On the left the garden was bounded by a high brick wall covered with
ripening peaches; on the right lay a thick belt of shrubbery, extending
up to the house. Enid chose the latter as affording the best shelter
from any one standing at the windows, and, darting into the friendly
cover, she commenced her stealthy approach. With any luck, she told
herself, Mr. Nugent might be in his library interviewing one or other of
the people whom her father deemed his accomplices, and she might pick up
some useful crumbs of information to take home.

She had traversed half the length of the shrubbery in safety when her
heart was set thumping by a sound behind her. It was the click of the
latch of the gate through which she had so recently entered the garden.
Glancing over her shoulder she caught, through the foliage, a glimpse of
a man who to her dismay was making straight for the shrubbery, taking a
diagonal course across the lawn which would bring him to the very spot
she had reached. Acting, as was her habit, on impulse, she did a thing
the folly of which she only recognized when it was too late to remedy
it. Just ahead of her, almost hidden in a tangle of thicket, was a
small, one-storied structure built of stone--a sort of grotto or
summer-house. Its walls were covered with green mould, never a ray of
sun reaching them, and it looked damp, disused and forgotten. The
doorway stood open, and Enid darted through, finding herself almost in
darkness, fo