preferred to live a hermit in centres of civilisation.... Curious!"

"I don't wonder you think so. Perhaps the man had been up to some
mischief.... But," said the girl with a note of regret, "we're almost
home!"

They had come to the seaward verge of the woodland, where the trees and
scrub rose like a wild hedgerow on one side of a broad, well-metalled
highway. Before them stretched the eighth of a mile of neglected land
knee-deep with crisp, dry, brown stalks of weedy growths, beyond which
the bay smiled, a still lake of colour mirroring the intense
lapis-lazuli of the calm eastern skies of evening. Over across its
waters the sand dunes of a long island glowed like a bar of new red
gold, tinted by the transient scarlet and yellow glory of the
smouldering Autumnal sunset. Through the woods the level, brilliant,
warmthless rays ran like wild-fire, turning each dead, brilliant leaf
to a wisp of incandescent flame, and tingeing the air with an
evanescent ruby radiance against which the slim young boles stood black
and stark.

To the right, on the other side of the road, a rustic fence enclosed
the trim, well-groomed plantations of Tanglewood Lodge; through the
dead limbs a window of the house winked in the sunset glow like an eye
of garnet. And as the two appeared a man came running up the road,
shouting.

"That's Quain!" cried Amber; and sent a long cry of greeting toward
him.

"Wait!" said the girl impulsively, putting out a detaining hand. "Let's