"Hedges are getting clearer," suggested Adrian, "funny how quickly one gets used to things. This Woodrising wall is plain as the lighthouse."
They ran on--down hill always, passed the long line of wall, and just as the overhanging shrubs and sheltering height of Fuchsia Cottage hill-side showed a big black patch on the right hand, the moon suddenly appeared again, and everything around--road, hedges, bushes, and towering steep above cottage and church--came out again as clear as a painted scene.
Adrian and Christobel both looked ahead down the road. It was empty. Not a soul in sight.
"Where's she gone to?" said Christobel, stopping.
"Don't ask me, my good girl," Adrian was cross, unquestionably, "I suppose she's up to some trick."
Such a suggestion did not please Crow.
"You shouldn't talk like that, Addie," she expostulated. "Pam doesn't play 'tricks'. She isn't that sort of girl. None of us are. There may be something up we don't know about that sent her up to Folly Ho. Perhaps Mother wanted a message taken to Timothy Batt--one never knows! The thing I don't understand is, how she's managed to disappear, considering the road is about as straight as a ruler, and the moonlight is bang on it, and there's only one way home."
Adrian said nothing; in silence, and at a quick walk they arrived opposite the shaded gate of Fuchsia Cottage. Here Christobel stopped again. "She can't have sunk through the earth, Addie, and she wouldn't have jumped the hedge! I believe she went in here. Mother may have given her a message to the Little Pilgrim--why not?"
"Why not, of course!" echoed Adrian dryly. "The sort of thing Mother would do--considering it's just on ten o'clock."
There was so much truth in this, that Christobel did not make any reply to it--she said: