we
shall have that brute, or Mr. Nugent himself, round to stop us."

So she leaned against the mouldy wall and watched the laborious task
with growing impatience, and in momentary dread lest the door should be
flung open by the "bootlace man" or his employer. For though she was
nearly certain that her companion of the grotto was a shedder of human
blood her instinct told her that to her personally the forces controlled
by Travers Nugent were far more dangerous.

The work of removing the roofing seemed interminable. The interior of
the old stone building grew pitch-black before three of the slates had
been displaced and gently tossed into the herbage. A distant clock in
the town struck eight, nine, and ten and still Legros remained on his
perch, toiling, with twisted body and arm crooked through the broken
pane, in frantic endeavour to enlarge the opening.

At last the clock struck eleven, and before the half-hour the Frenchman
slid nimbly to the floor.

"There, ma'amselle!" he panted after his exertions. "I t'ink there room
now for you to pass through. For myself I shall have to make 'im one
bit bigger. If you ready I give you what you call a 'and up."

Enid prepared to mount the kegs, grateful that she was wearing a short
golfing skirt, but in no wise daunted at the prospect of crawling
through the yawning gap in the roof or of the drop to the ground on the
other side. But in the act of commencing her scramble on to the
improvised stage she paused and clutched Pierre's arm.

"Hush!" she whispered. "I heard some one speaking. There are people
close by--crossing the garden."

In a silence that could be felt they waited, and it was only when the
voice which had disturbed her had passed beyond hearing that Enid wished
that she had pursued quite other tactics and called out--called with the
full vigour of her lungs.

For all too late she realized that the voice which had arrested her
attempted escape was the voice of her friend, Violet Maynard. She tried
to rectify her error by calling out now, but there was no response. Her
shrill cry shot skywards through the aperture towards the blinking
stars, but the thick stone walls stood between her and the ears the cry
was meant for. Violet and Travers Nugent had passed through the door on
to the moor on their way to the beach. CHAPTER XXIV

IN THE TOILS

The commotion caused by Leslie Chermside's descent into the launch, and
by his unsuccessful struggle with the cre