peared puzzled.

"But why?"

"Simply because dad has gone out of his senses," she replied wearily.
"Look here."

She led him cautiously to the window and pointed downwards. About
fifty yards out at sea was a queer wooden structure, set up on strong
supports. From where they were, nothing was to be seen but a windowless
wall of framework and a rope ladder. Underneath, a boat was tethered to
one of the supports. About thirty yards away, a man was rowing leisurely
around in another small boat.

"That's where father spends about twelve hours a day," she said. "What
he is doing no one knows. He won't even allow me to speak of it. When we
meet at meals, I am not supposed to allude to the fact that he has been
out in that crazy place. If ever he happens to speak of it, he calls it
his workshop."

"But he is not alone there?" Granet asked.

"Oh, no! There are two or three men from London, and an American,
working with him. Then do you see the corner of the garden there?"

She pointed to a long barn or boathouse almost upon the beach. Before
the door two sentries were standing. Even from where they sat they could
hear the faint whirr of a dynamo.

"There are twenty men at work in there," she said. "They all sleep in
the barn or the potting sheds. They are not allowed even to go down to
the village. Now, perhaps, you can begin to understand, Captain Granet,
what it is like to be here."

"Well, it all sounds very interesting," he remarked, "but I should
think it must be deadly for you. Your father invents no end of wonderful
things, doesn't he?"

"If he does, he never speaks about it," the girl answered a little
bitterly. "All that he wants from me is my absence or my silence. When I
came back the other night, he was furious. If he'd thought about it, I'm
sure he'd have had me stay in London. Now that I am here, though, I am
simply a prisoner."

Granet resumed his seat and lit the cigarette which she insisted upon
his smoking.

"Well," he observed, "it does seem hard upon you, Miss Worth. On the
other hand, it really is rather interesting, isn't it, to think that
your father is such a man of mysteries?"

The girl sighed.

"I suppose so," she admitted, "but then, you see, father is almost
brutal about taking any one into his confidence. He never tells even me
a thing, or encourages me to ask a question. I think for that reason I
have grown rather to resent his work and the ridiculous restriction he
places upon m