make her way swiftly to the back door.

The back gardens of Alma Villas ran parallel to each other, and were
terminated by a high wall, with a quay-door apiece, a tall ladder
leading from the door straight down to the water. At the end of the
garden, and built against this wall, in each case a stone terrace
with a flight of steps allowed any one who chose to climb, and even
perform a limited promenade while enjoying a full view of the harbour
beyond.

It was to this flight of steps that Miss Limpenny, with a prayer on
her lips and the telescope under her arm, made her way.

Both terrace and steps were rickety to a degree. To help you to
estimate her conduct at its full temerity I may mention that Miss
Limpenny had never attempted the climb before in her life.
But whatever qualms she may have felt, they did not appear in her
behaviour. Gingerly, but without hesitation, and clutching the
telescope, which impeded her as an ice-axe the rock-climber, she
essayed all the perils of this maiden ascent.

Five minutes' stiff climbing, as they say in the _Alpine Journal_,
brought her to a point where she could take breath and look about
her. Despite her terror, the excitement and the light breeze now
blowing over the _arete_ of garden wall, had brought a flush to her
cheek. But scarcely had she resumed and set her foot upon the
summit, when the flush suddenly faded, and left her blanched as snow.

For there, not a foot to her right, and above the crest of the
partition wall, rose another telescope, the exact counterpart of her