“Never felt better in my life,” sparkled Miss Penny.  “But seriously, Mr. Graeme, it is only right you should understand, for we don’t quite know where we are ourselves, and I’m going to tell you even though Margaret kicks all the skin off my leg in the process.  In a word,—­we’ve bolted.”

“Bolted?” he echoed, all aglow with hopeful interest.

“Yes—­from Mr. Pixley and all his works.  And as he had been threatening to make us a Ward of Court, you see—­well, there you are, don’t you know.”

“I see,” he said, and there was a new light in his eyes as he looked at Margaret, and his soul danced within him again as David’s before the Ark.

“For reasons which seemed adequate to myself, Mr. Graeme,”—­began Margaret, in more sober explanation.

“They were, they were.  I am sure of it,” sang his heart.  And his brain asked eagerly, “Had Charles Svendt anything to do with it, I wonder?”

“—­I thought it well to remove myself from the care of my guardian Mr. Pixley——­”

“Splendid girl!  Splendid girl!” sang his heart.

“—­And as I have still some of my time to serve——­”

“How long, O Lord, how long?” chaunted his heart, with no sense of impropriety, for it was sounding paeans of joyful hope.

“—­You see——­” said Margaret.

“I see.”

“Do you think they could make me go back to him?” she asked anxiously.

“To Mr. Pixley?  Certainly not—­that is if your reasons for leaving him seemed adequate to the Court, as I am sure they would.”

She offered no explanation on this point.  All that she left unsaid, and that he would have given much to hear, seemed dancing just inside Miss Penny’s sparkling eyes, and as like as not to come dancing out at any moment.

“You see,” said Graeme, “I happen to have been making some enquiries from a legal friend on that very point——­”

“Oh!” said Margaret, and Miss Penny’s eyes danced carmagnoles.

“In connection with a story, you know.  One likes to get one’s legal points all right.  In any case, as I was just about to tell Miss Penny for the benefit of her criminal friend, there would be lots of red tape to unwind before they could do anything, and this little isle of Sark is the quaintest place in the world in the matter of its own old observances and their integrity, and the rejection of new ideas.  Mr. Pixley does not know you are here, of course?”

“Not much, or he’d have been over by special boat long since,” said Miss Penny.  “We managed it splendidly.”

“And how long?” began Graeme, in pursuance of his train of thought, but stopped short at sound of the words, since they bore distant resemblance to a curiosity which seemed to himself impertinent.

But Miss Penny knew no such compunctions.  She did not want to miss one jot or tittle of her enjoyment of the situation.

“About six months,” said she quickly.