then passes you all that's coming
to you. Guess she's had me by the neck quite awhile now, what with one
thing and another. However, I mustn't blame her too much. You see, I
lost myself, and it was she who found me, though I don't think
anything of the way she did it. I was boosting through what I thought
was a reasonable sort of bush, and found it wasn't. It was the
overhang of the river, and when I dropped through I found myself in
the water. Still, I knew that water was the river, and I knew where
the river was. I'm grateful, in a way, but I can't help feeling Fate's
got a dirty side to her nature, and bridges are fool things anyway,
for always being where they aren't wanted."

Kate's laugh was one of whole-hearted amusement. Big Brother Bill's
whimsical manner appealed to her.

"Maybe Fate thought you were out later than you ought to be," she
said. "You--a stranger."

But the girl's remark had a different effect upon Bill than might have
been expected. His smile died out, and all his lightness vanished.
Once more he was feeling that atmosphere of mystery closing about him.
It had oppressed him before, and now again it was oppressing him.

For a moment he made no answer. He was debating with himself in his
blundering way. Finally, with a quick, reckless plunge, he made up his
mind.

"I--was looking for Charlie," he said. "I've been trying to find him
ever since I left here."

The girl's smile had passed, too. A growing trouble was in her eyes.

"Charlie--is still out?" she demanded sharply. "And Fyles--where did
you meet Inspector Fyles?"

The dark eyes were full of anxiety now. Kate's voice had lost its
softness. Nor could Bill help noticing the wonderful strength that
seemed to lie behind it.

"I can't say where Charlie is now," the man went on, a little
helplessly. "I saw Fyles close by that big pine tree."

"Close by the pine tree?" Kate repeated the words after him, and her
repetition of them suddenly endowed them with a strange significance
for Bill.

With an air of having suddenly abandoned all prudence, all caution,
Bill flung out his arms.

"Say, Miss Seton," he said, in a sort of desperation, "I'm
troubled--troubled to death. I can't tell the top-side from the
bottom-side of anything, it seems to me. There's things I can't
understand hereabouts, a sort of mystery that gets me by the neck and
nearly chokes me. Maybe you can help me. It seems different, too,
talking to you. I don't seem to be