s were on her brother as I turned, and then she quickened her pace
towards me. I had raised my hat and was about to make some explanatory
remark when her own words turned all my thoughts into a new channel.

"Go back!" she said. "Go straight back to London, instantly."

I could only stare at her in stupid surprise. Her eyes blazed at me, and
she tapped the ground impatiently with her foot.

"Why should I go back?" I asked.

"I cannot explain." She spoke in a low, eager voice, with a curious lisp
in her utterance. "But for God's sake do what I ask you. Go back and
never set foot upon the moor again."

"But I have only just come."

"Man, man!" she cried. "Can you not tell when a warning is for your own
good? Go back to London! Start tonight! Get away from this place at all
costs! Hush, my brother is coming! Not a word of what I have said. Would
you mind getting that orchid for me among the mare's-tails yonder? We
are very rich in orchids on the moor, though, of course, you are rather
late to see the beauties of the place."

Stapleton had abandoned the chase and came back to us breathing hard and
flushed with his exertions.

"Halloa, Beryl!" said he, and it seemed to me that the tone of his
greeting was not altogether a cordial one.

"Well, Jack, you are very hot."

"Yes, I was chasing a Cyclopides. He is very rare and seldom found in
the late autumn. What a pity that I should have missed him!" He spoke
unconcernedly, but his small light eyes glanced incessantly from the
girl to me.

"You have introduced yourselves, I can see."

"Yes. I was telling Sir Henry that it was rather late for him to see the
true beauties of the moor."

"Why, who do you think this is?"

"I imagine that it must be Sir Henry Baskerville."

"No, no," said I. "Only a humble commoner, but his friend. My name is
Dr. Watson."

A flush of vexation passed over her expressive face. "We have been
talking at cross purposes," said she.

"Why, you had not very much time for talk," her brother remarked with
the same questioning eyes.

"I talked as if Dr. Watson were a resident instead of being merely a
visitor," said she. "It cannot much matter to him whether it is early
or late for the orchids. But you will come on, will you not, and see
Merripit House?"

A short walk brought us to it, a bleak moorland house, once the farm
of some grazier in the old prosperous days, but now put into repair and
turned into a modern dwelling. An orchard s