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Suddenly her solitude was intruded upon.

“Hi! ” yelled an amused voice. “What are you training for? The Olympic Games?''

Fenella all but caught a crab. She was both startled and annoyed. She had no wish for company of any sort, but that the intruder should be Martin Adair was the very last straw!

She had wondered vaguely where he was living during his stay in Fairhaven and now she had her answer.

A medium-sized cabin cruiser which she recognised as one that was hired out during the summer months was moored against the opposite bank, and Martin, leaning on the rail, was grinning down at her.

“We have got a trick of meeting, haven’t we?" he commented. “Almost as if it was planned—"

“If I’d known you were here, I wouldn’t—” Fenella began, and stopped because it was clear that her annoyance was simply providing him with additional cause for amusement.

“Have come within a mile?” he suggested. “Well, don’t worry. I wasn’t intending to suggest that I suspect you of running after me!”

His impertinence infuriated Fenella beyond the point where any words of hers could be adequate. With lips pressed close, she began to row again, unpleasantly conscious that the wretched man was watching her with, she didn’t doubt, that amused look still on his face.

And just why should he find her amusing? she thought angrily. If he had any decency at all, he'd still be feeling slightly abashed by the memory of their earlier meeting this afternoon. But not he! She couldn’t imagine any circumstances in which he wouldn’t feel entirely sure of himself!

Which was more than she did at the moment. She hadn’t thought very coherently as to her reason for wanting to escape—nor from what she wanted to escape, but she had known that there were problems which she would only have a chance of solving if there was no one else about.

And now, of all people, here was this Adair man—oh, not very near at hand, perhaps, but too near for comfort because—her forehead puckered. Her first impression of him had been that he was just a perfectly ordinary person. Then; quite soon, he had shown that hint of reserve for which she had never found a satisfactory solution, though she was reasonably sure that it had something to do with the sunken
Nimrod
.

And from then on she’d never been quite sure of what sort of man he was. A writer of considerable merit and skill—no doubt about that. A man who had an irritating trick of turning up when you didn’t expect or want him. But above all, a man who didn’t worry very much about the feelings of others so long as he got what he wanted out of life—even if it was only slightly malicious amusement.

But this was absurd! She hadn’t come all this way just to think about Martin Adair. That was very sure. So, well out of his sight, she pulled into the bank and tied up to a convenient tree. It was shady and cool and the gently flowing water chuckled entrancingly beneath the
Golden Hind.

Fenella made herself comfortable with a couple of plastic-covered cushions and closed her eyes.

“Only for a minute or two—” she murmured.

It was very peaceful, very quiet—Fenella was sound asleep.

Suddenly she stirred. As clearly as if someone had spoken close beside her, words rang in her ears.

“But you
do
know what it is you’re running away from! You don’t want to face up to the knowledge that more than likely, Anthony and Rosemary will get married after all! ”

“But is it so likely?” unconsciously she spoke aloud. “Possible, of course. But not certain. Because Anthony himself isn’t certain. That’s why he went off in
Wild Rose,
just as he always has done if he’s got something to think out. Just the same as I felt. No, he’s not sure. And besides, even if he is still in love with Rosemary, what about her?”

In her mind’s eye she saw again that lovely, frozen face, and wondered. Gould Anthony—could anyone— bring life and joy back to it?

“But
why
is she like that?” Fenella puzzled. “Because it’s years since her husband was killed and most people seem to find the courage to pick up at least some threads. But Rosemary hasn’t. She’s as—as stunned as if it happened yesterday. And it’s not as if she didn’t have loads of courage before she was married. I wonder—I
do
wonder—! ”

She brooded over the problem for a while, but without result, yet gradually she realised that she was perfectly clear on one point at least.

Whatever the future might hold for Anthony and Rosemary depended on
why
Rosemary had changed so much. Only then would one be able to make even a guess at whether she would ever consider marrying again.

“Because she won’t while she’s like this,” Fenella told herself positively. “I’m absolutely certain of that! ”

She sighed deeply. How could she—how could anyone help feeling sorry for Rosemary? And as a result, wasn’t it only natural to want to do something for her? Yet how was that possible when one couldn’t even guess why—

Of course, quite likely Sir Geoffrey and Lady Lancing knew. Perhaps even the rest of the family, but one certainly couldn’t ask them! Then who—?

Sudden illumination came. Martin Adair, of course!

It wasn’t absolutely certain that he knew about it, but it was at least a possibility.

Fenella frowned and bit her lip. It meant eating humble pie, which wouldn’t be pleasant, but she could see no alternative. She
had
to know!

Methodically she cast off, turned about and began to row steadily downstream, and deliberately refraining from exerting herself as much as she had done before. She had no wish to arrive at the cabin cruiser in a red-faced, tousled state!

Martin had evidently been sitting in a chair on the after deck, but he must have heard the plash of her oars because by the time she came alongside he was back in his old place at the rail.

Their eyes met as Fenella rested on her oars, and perhaps there was something in Fenella’s which told him this wasn’t a time for flippancy.

“Yes?” he asked gravely. “How can I help you?”

“I don’t know if you can,” Fenella told him, taken aback at the shrewdness of his perception. “Or—or if you’ll want to—”

“Suppose you come aboard, then, while we find out,” he suggested.

“Now then?” he encouraged a few minutes later when they were sitting side by side in Martin’s boat while the little
Golden Hind
bobbed gently at her stern.

“It’s about Rosemary,” Fenella blurted out.

“What about her?” Martin asked in a way which somehow suggested to Fenella that the question didn’t surprise him.

“I want to know what’s happened to her. What’s made her like she is? Oh, I know, she’s lost her husband, but there’s something more than that! It’s something that— that’s haunting her, and I want to know what it is. I
must
know!”

“Must you?” Martin asked curiously. “Why? And in any case, why come to me?”

Fenella chose to answer his final question first.

“Because I haven’t seen her since before her marriage. None of us here has,” she explained. “But
you
have. And I thought you might know.”

“But you haven’t told me yet why it’s so important for you to know,” he reminded her.

“No—and I'm not sure that I can,” Fenella confessed. “It’s all so involved. But one reason at least is that—I was very, very fond of Rosemary when I was little. She was the sort of person that—that made the sun shine. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes, I know,” Martin nodded. “I’ve met someone like that. Go on!”

“I’m quite a bit younger than she is, but that didn’t seem to matter. She never seemed to get bored with playing my games and making up tales.” Fenella leaned forward to rest her chin on her hand. Her eyes, seeing the past rather than the present, were full of dreams. “There was one about a Lame Mermaid—”

“What?” Martin exclaimed. “But how could she be?”

“She could only swish her tail in one direction,” Fenella explained gravely. “So that she could only swim in circles—”

“I see,” Martin nodded comprehendingly. “Go on!”

“And another about the Eldest Fish Princess who was unhappy because her younger sisters had all got suitors and she hadn’t—” Fenella stopped short. “Oh, don’t you understand? It
hurts
to see her like this! And besides—” she bit her lips and fell silent. She simply mustn’t bring Anthony’s name into it.

Martin was silent for so long that Fenella began to wish she’d never yielded to the impulse which had brought her here. She half stood up.

“No, sit down,” Martin said abruptly, and put out a sinewy hand to restrain her. “I’ll get going in a minute, but I had to think this out. You see, while I believe that you’re absolutely sincere in saying you want to help Rosemary, I’m afraid that if I tell you the whole story, it might make it impossible for you to do that.”

“Why?” Fenella asked uncomprehendingly.

“Because she’d see in your eyes that you knew. And she’d also know that only one person could have told you. Me.”

“And she’d be hurt still more because you’d broken a confidence?” Fenella asked gravely.

“Something like that," Martin nodded. “And the last thing in the world I’d like to happen is that she felt she couldn’t trust me—”

Fenella didn’t answer. He had spoken so emphatically that, surely, it could mean only one thing.

Martin was in love with Rosemary.

IF Martin Adair was in love with Rosemary and if sooner or later she returned his love, why then Anthony would have to look somewhere else for a wife! And how could Fenella help thinking that nothing would be more likely than that he would turn to someone of whom he had always been fond and whom he knew he could trust?

She became aware that Martin had spoken and what was more, in a way which made it clear he was repeating something he had already said.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologised. “I’m afraid I was trying to work things out—what was it you said?”

“I asked you if you understood,” Martin said gravely.

“Understood?” For a moment Fenella floundered uncertainly. Surely he couldn’t have read her thoughts? “Understood what?”

“My reason for not answering your questions about Rosemary,” Martin explained without a hint of impatience.

“Yes. Yes, I think I do. And of course, there’s another thing,” Fenella said thoughtfully. “If I don’t know and anyone asks me, I can say flat out that I don’t know, and I’ll be believed because when it is the truth, one is convincing. Whereas, when it isn’t, even what you don’t say can tell people things you’d rather they didn’t know.”

“How very true!” Martin said feelingly.

Fenella looked at him sympathetically.

“That sounds as if you’ve come up against that problem very recently,” she remarked.

“I have," Martin admitted grimly. “Just this afternoon at Lyon House. A lady of, shall we say, uncertain age with peculiar eyes—”

“That make you feel she can look round corners—and yet look right through you at the same time?” Fenella interrupted.

Martin laughed appreciatively.

“A first-class description!” he declared. “She introduced herself as Miss Prosser. A well known character, I take it?”

“Very well known,” Fenella confirmed. “We’ve all suffered from her tongue at one time or another!”

“All!” Martin said thoughtfully. “You don’t surprise me. The lady was most communicative. In fact—do you remember on the occasion of our first meeting that I spoke critically of the local people as being cagey— unwilling to talk?”

“Yes, I remember,” Fenella said, and recalled something else which had happened that day. But Martin was continuing—

“Well, I take it all back!” he declared feelingly. “After my experience of this afternoon, I'm all in favour of people minding their own business because I’m now in the unpleasant position of knowing a lot too much about my neighbours' affairs.” He grimaced wryly.

“Oh!” Fenella said faintly, quite sure that her affairs and Anthony’s, to say nothing of Rosemary’s, had figured in Miss Prosser’s revelations.

“Yes—extremely embarrassing, although fortunately I have a very bad memory,” Martin went on tactfully. “Of course, her real purpose was to get me talking in the hopes that I'd say something indiscreet. A dangerous woman, that! ”

“And all the more so because she’s related to so many people hereabouts,” Fenella told him. “There’s one in particular—Mr. Adair, has Anthony said anything to you about Tom Polwyn?”

“No,” Martin’s eyes were alert. “What about Tom Polwyn?”

“Just that, when I left you the day we first met—”

Fenella began, and went on to tell him every detail she could remember of her encounter with Tom Polwyn.

“A warning to mind my own business, and a threat of something unpleasant happening if I didn’t," Martin pondered when she had finished.

“Yes—although he didn’t make a threat in so many words,” Fenella explained carefully.

“But you think he would have done but for Phillips coming along?” Martin queried, and Fenella nodded.

“Yes, though I don’t really know what they could do—” and stopped short at the subtle change in Martin’s expression. “You mean—they have done something already?”

“I couldn’t swear to it,” Martin admitted. “But the fact remains, on three recent occasions, different shops have been out of supplies of some article or other I’ve wanted, and as a result, I’ve put in a definite order. But the things never turn up. Inconclusive, but suggestive.”

“Well, of course, nowadays it does take a long time to get special orders through,” Fenella conceded. “But all the same, you could be right, Mr. Adair.”

“I think I am. Particularly as—” he stopped short as if he felt he had said too much, but Fenella guessed what he had been on the point of saying.

“You mean something else has happened? Something more serious?” she asked anxiously.