'No, Miss; not that I knows of.'

'Thank you, I am very much obliged.'

'Wait a minute, Miss—Wednesday—yes, it was last night, I believe, as Sal was to sing at a concert at Updene. Yes, it was. Some o' my mates at Cuckmere got leave to go.'

'Updene farm?'

'Yes, Miss,' said the wiry little sailor with a grin. 'That's promotion for Sal—to sing at a concert.'

'I don't see why she should not sing at a concert,' said Nan, regarding him with her clear gray eyes, so that the grin instantly vanished from his face. 'I've heard much worse singing at many a concert. Then, if she was at Updene last night, she would most likely come along here to-day.'

'I don't know, Miss,' said the man, who knew much less about Singing Sal's ways than did Miss Anne Beresford. 'Mayhap the concert didn't come off, along of the snow.'

Nan again thanked him, and continued on her way—eastward. She was thinking. Somehow she had quite forgotten about the church. The air around her was wonderfully keen and exhilarating; the skies overhead were intensely blue; out there on the downs the soft, white snow would be beautiful. Nan walked on at a brisker pace, and her spirits rose. The sunlight seemed to get into her veins. And then her footing required a great deal of attention, and she had plenty of active exercise; for though here and there the force of the wind had left the roads almost bare, elsewhere the snow had formed long drifts of three to five feet in depth, and these had either to be got round or plunged through. Then, up Kemp-Town way, where there is less traffic, her difficulties increased. The keen air seemed to make her easily breathless. But at all events she felt comfortably warm, and the sun felt hot on her cheek.

She had at length persuaded herself that she was anxious about Singing Sal's safety. Many people must have perished in that snowstorm—caught unawares on the lonely downs. At all events, she could ask at one or two of the coastguard stations if anything had been heard of Sal. It was just possible she might meet her, if the entertainment at Updene farm had come off.

At Black Rock station they had heard nothing; but she went on all the same. For now this was a wonderful and beautiful landscape all around her, up on these high cliffs; and the novelty of it delighted her, though the bewildering white somewhat dazzled her eyes. Towards the edge of the cliffs, where the wind had swept across, there was generally not more than an inch or two of snow—hard and crisp, with traceries of birds' feet on it, like long strings of lace; but a few yards on her left the snow had got banked up in the most peculiar drifts, resembling in a curious manner the higher ranges of the Alps. Sometimes, however, the snow became deep here also; so that she had to betake herself to the road, where the farmers' men around had already cut a way through the deeper stoppages; and there she found herself going along a white gallery—yellow-white on the left, where the sunlight fell on the snow, but an intense blue on the right, where the crystalline snow, in shadow, reflected the blue of the sky overhead. And still she ploughed on her way, with all her pulses tingling with life and gladness; for this wonder of yellow whiteness and blue whiteness, and the sunlight, and the keen air, all lent themselves to a kind of fascination; and she scarcely perceived that her usual landmarks were gone: it was enough for her to keep walking, stumbling, sinking, avoiding the deeper drifts, and farther and farther losing herself in the solitariness of this white, hushed world.