Georgie and Estelle were gazing at Marjorie as if her words and her calm alone prevented them from breaking down. If she gave way to fear, what effect might it not have upon them? It was her duty to encourage and raise the spirits of the younger ones, and put aside her own misgivings. With an effort she forced herself to speak in cheerful tones.
'It is useless to think about it,' she said, 'and the best thing we can do is to amuse ourselves till it is time to go. Look, the boat ought to be pulled up higher. Let us see if we can manage it between us.'
Meantime Alan had reached the coastguard path which ran along the edge of the cliff. No one being in sight, he determined to take the narrow track which lay through a wooded hollow. It was part of the Moat House property, and he desired to see whether he and Marjorie had been correct in their guess that it was to this wood that Thomas had wished to come when he was seen in the Wilderness.
Scrambling over the queer stone stile, he descended the rugged pathway, where the thick brushwood and high trees shut out sky and sunlight. As he advanced the track became narrower and more mossy, while here and there the ground was broken by rocks. Now and again high mounds of earth, mossy and green, rose on either side, and the wood grew denser. He was uneasy, and half wished he had kept to the edge of the cliff, where the way was clear, for he seemed to have left the world behind him. There was something uncanny in the dead silence, and he quite startled when a rabbit jumped across his path into a hole. But the next moment, boy-like, he wished he had had the dogs with him that he might give chase.
(Continued on page [30].)
"Alan paused to look back."
