clearly visible in the light of a strong incandescent gas-burner
just within the hall.

The watcher in the garden moved a little to get a clearer view.

In the paroxysm of terror at this sudden coming to life of what
they had believed to be a part of the bushes, the two little
field-mice scampered away, and Dunn bit his lip with annoyance,
for he knew well that some of those he had had traffic with in the
past would have been very sure, on hearing that scurrying-off of
the frightened mice, that some one was lurking near at hand.

But the two in the lighted doorway opening on the veranda heard and
suspected nothing.

One was a man, one a woman, both were young, both were
extraordinarily good-looking, and as they stood in the blaze of the
gas they made a strikingly handsome and attractive picture on which,
however, Dunn seemed to look from his hiding-place with hostility
and watchful suspicion.

"How dark it is, there's not a star showing," the girl was saying.
"Shall you be able to find your way, even with the lantern? You'll
keep to the road, won't you?"

Her voice was low and pleasant and so clear Dunn heard every word
distinctly. She seemed quite young, not more than twenty or
twenty-one, and she was slim and graceful in build and tall for a
woman. Her face, on which the light shone directly, was oval in
shape with a broad, low forehead on which clustered the small,