Quite unconscious that her stockings and high boots were upon another rock, her skirt only reached just below the knee and her legs and beautiful feet were bare, Leonie sat up as straight as she could and peered from between her masses of hair; upon which the dog, thinking that he alone was responsible for the discovery of this wild beast, yelped and barked and growled as he slid in and out of the pools.

Pushing her hair back, and shielding her eyes from the sun and her face from the man, she flashed one swift glance from his shoes to his hair; that non-looking, all-seeing glance of woman which leaves fork lightning at the post, and causes you to wish you had spent a little more time upon your toilet.

Although she had barely looked at him, Leonie could have described the man before her down to the minutest detail.

No doubt about it he was good to look upon, with his steady eyes, the straight ultra-refined nose with slightly-distended nostrils, and a jaw which, in shape and strength, belied the almost feminine beauty of the mouth.

He stood well over six feet, though you would hardly have thought so because of the massive shoulders which seemed to have been created to carry the troubles of the entire world.

His hands, the outward, visible and infallible sign of the inner man, were perfect male hands, long and thin with square-tipped sensitive fingers, and a certain look of steel about the back and wrists.

But although he had been looking at her steadily for quite a minute, owing to some inexplicable overpowering sensation which had seized upon him, he would most certainly not have been able to tell you the colour of her hair or that her feet were bare.

“I beg your pardon,” he said quite suddenly and a little hoarsely, “but my dog brought me to you—­and as I think the tide is on the turn, I thought——­”

But any further description of his thoughts was cut short in most unseemly fashion as, with an ear-splitting bark, the terrier hurled himself into the girl’s lap, standing up to put its fore-paws round her neck, wriggling and squirming until the four feet, collar, and head were thoroughly knotted in the beautiful hair.

Leonie held on to her scalp to lessen the pain as stray hairs were literally dragged out by the roots, whilst tears of agony streamed down her face on to the man’s hands as he held the squirming animal and endeavoured to loosen its bonds.

“Cut it!”

“What!  All that!”

“Oh!  I can spare it, but I can’t stand the pain much longer, and I can’t bear having my head touched.  Look, I’ll hold the dog firmly on my lap and bend my head, it won’t hurt quite as much then, only do be quick!”

She put both hands on the shivering dog, who seemed to have sensed that something had gone agley, and pressing him down upon her knees bent her head, and her hair fell in waves about the man’s feet as he unclasped a pocket-knife.