* * * * * *

“Nan’s very late.”

Mrs. Seymour made the statement rather blankly.  Dinner had been announced and the house-party were gathered together in the hall round the great hearth fire.  The summer day had chilled to a cool evening, as so often happens by the sea, and the ruddy flames diffused a cheery glow of warmth.

“Perhaps Lady Gertrude is keeping her to dinner,” said Lord St. John.  “It’s very probable.”  As he spoke he held out his hands to the fire—­withered old hands that looked somehow frailer than their wont.

Kitty shook her head.

“No.  She—­I don’t think she enjoyed her visit overmuch, and, when she came back she went out cycling—­to ‘work it off,’” she said.

“Where did she go?” inquired Penelope.

“To Tintagel.  I told her she wouldn’t have time enough to get there and back before dinner.  Never mind.  We’ll begin, and I’ll order something to be kept hot for her.”

Accordingly they all adjourned to the dining-room and dinner proceeded in its usual leisurely fashion, although the gay chatter that generally accompanied it was absent.  Everyone seemed conscious of a certain uneasiness.

“I wish young Nan would come back,” remarked Barry at last, looking up abruptly from the fish he was dissecting.  A shade of anxiety clouded his lazy blue eyes.  “I hope she’s not come a cropper down one of these confounded hills.”

He voiced the restless feeling of suspense which was beginning to pervade the whole party.

“What time did she start, Kit?” he went on.

“About five o’clock, I should think, or soon after.”

“Then she’d have had loads of time to get back by now.”

The general tension took the form of a sudden silence.  Then Peter Mallory spoke, very quietly: 

“She didn’t propose going up to the castle, did she?” In spite of its quietness his voice had a certain clipped sound that drove home the significance of his question.

“Yes, she did.”  Kitty tried to reassure herself.  “But she’s as surefooted as a deer.  We all went up the other day and Nan was by far the best climber amongst us.”

Almost simultaneously Peter and Barry were on their feet.

“Something may have happened, all the same,” said Barry with concern.  “She might have sprained her ankle—­or—­or anything.”

He turned to the servant nearest him.

“Tell Atkinson to get the car round and to be quick about it.”

“Very good, sir.”  And the man disappeared on his errand.

In a moment the thought that a possible accident might have befallen Nan broke up the party.  Kitty and Penelope hurried off in quest of rugs and sandwiches and brandy—­anything that might be of service, while the men drew together, conversing in low voices while they waited for the car.

“You’ll find her, Barry?” St. John’s voice shook a little.  “You’ll bring her back safe?”