t
was more pleasant than oppressive. The two women who sat there looked
delightfully cool. Helen Thurwell especially, in her white holland gown,
with a great bunch of heather stuck in her belt, and a faint healthy
glow in her cheeks, looked as only an English country girl of good birth
can look--the very personification of dainty freshness.

"There go the guns again!" she exclaimed. "Listen to the echoes. They
can't be far away now."

There was a little murmur of satisfaction. Every allowance is to be made
for such a keen sportsman as Mr. Thurwell on the glorious twelfth, but
the time fixed for the rendezvous had been exceeded by more than an
hour.

"I have reached the limit of my endurance!" Rachel Kynaston declared,
getting up from her seat. "I must either lunch or faint! As a matter of
choice, I prefer the former."

"They will be here directly, miss," Groves remarked, as he completed the
finishing touches which he had been putting to the table, and stepped
back a little to view the effect. So far as he was concerned they might
come any time now. For once his subordinates had not failed him. Nothing
had been forgotten; and, on the whole, he felt that he had reason to be
proud of his handiwork.

He glanced away inland again, shading his eyes with his hand.

"They'll be coming round the Black Copse in five minutes," he said, half
to himself. "James, get the other chairs out of the wagon."

Rachel Kynaston was still standing up looking around her. Suddenly her
eyes fell upon a quaintly built cottage, perched upon the edge of the
cliff about a mile away.

"I meant to ask you before, Helen," she exclaimed. "Who lives in that
extraordinary-looking building--Falcon's Nest, I think you call it?"

She moved her parasol in its direction, and looked at it curiously. A
strange-looking abode it certainly was; built of yellow stone, with a
background of stunted fir trees which stretched half way down the cliff
side.

Helen Thurwell looked across at it indifferently.

"I can tell you his name, and that is all," she answered. "He calls
himself Mr. Brown--Mr. Bernard Brown."

"Well, who is he? What does he do?"

Helen shook her head.

"Really, I haven't the least idea," she declared. "I do not even know
what he is like. He has been there for two months, and we haven't seen
him yet. Papa called upon him, but he was out. He has not returned the
call! He--oh, bother Mr. Brown, here they come! I'm so glad!"

They both