Clarissa has got my letter! But that is not all. I delivered it myself. I have met Clarissa, have talked with her, have passed that third stage in my journey which an odd week or so ago I would not have credited as possible.

Clarissa

Oh, but you will laugh when you hear the little that I said to her—the little indeed that she said to me. Yet it is the beginning. She still has my letter to read. I find myself gazing into distances which I never knew of, seeking for the answer she will give.

It came about much as I had expected; more easily, too, for the matter of that. And the longer I keep my secret to myself, the more confident am I that Bellwattle knows all about it. Does she speak to her husband, I wonder? Somehow I think not. The days go by. The hope of fish in the river becomes more and more remote. Cruikshank works on solemnly in his garden and never says a word to me questioning why I remain. Perhaps that is because she has told him. Yet is he ever actor enough to keep it so stubbornly to himself? He may be. Possibly I do not know the nature of these gardeners. There may be depths in Cruikshank's mind which I have never fathomed.

Whether that be the case or no, Bellwattle guesses. I am quite sure of that. A thousand times I have been so eager to know the nature of her guessing that I have well-nigh told her all. It has been on the end of my tongue when a sudden timidity has caught it back. And now that I have met Clarissa, the timidity is no less. It is more.

Three nights in succession, Bellwattle and I have been out in a fruitless search upon the cliffs. Not a soul have we seen. I have even begun to wonder whether the Miss Fennells were made suspicious by the questions I had asked, for on each occasion a light was shining in Clarissa's room and not a sign of movement came from within the house.

"I thought," said Bellwattle, on the third evening, "I thought the Miss Fennells said they took their invalid out for a walk when it was dark."

I did not look at her. I knew she was looking at me.

"So they said," I replied.

"I'm rather curious to see that invalid," she went on; "they say in the village here that she's not an invalid at all."

"What then?" I asked.

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