“Well, he won’t find Miles Chandon there.  Because why?  Because I’ve written out this telegram, which I’ll trouble you to send as soon as the post office opens to-morrow.  Nuisance there’s no telegraphing in the country on Sundays.  I thought of getting a porter to dispatch it for me at Taunton; but it wouldn’t reach Monte Carlo until some unearthly hour, and we’ve plenty of time.  Miles Chandon will get it to-morrow, probably just as Glasson is beginning to get on terms with the Channel crossing.  He’s the very subject for sea-sickness, the brute! . . .  And the two will probably pass one another at some time in the middle of the night, while I’m sleeping like a top after a happy day at Bursfield.”

“You count on Chandon’s coming?”

“Here’s the telegram—­’Return Meriton Wednesday at latest.  Important.  Sally Breward.’”

“Will that fetch him?”

“Of course it will.  Miles Chandon owes me something, as I think I told you, and is a gentleman moreover.”

“Oh, very well, I’ll send it, and I have only one other question.  What precisely is your business at Bursfield?”

Miss Sally grinned.

“Hay-making,” she answered, “while the sun shines—­that is to say, in Glasson’s absence.  I propose to make a considerable deal of hay.  Something will depend on Mr. Hucks; but from the child’s account of him, I build great hopes on Mr. Hucks. . . .  There’s one thing more.  I’ve sent the barouche to the station.  If I drive my own cart over to Fair Anchor, there’s nobody but Butts to bring it back, and you know Butts’s driving.  If I take the brown, the brown’ll bolt with him, and if I take the chestnut filly he’ll let her down.  So I must commandeer you and Archdeacon.”

Accordingly Parson Chichester drove Miss Sally over to the station, and bestowed her comfortably in the 7.12 up train.  She was in the highest spirits.  Having dispatched her and watched the train out of sight, the parson lit his lamps, climbed into his dog-cart again, and headed Archdeacon back for home.

He had struck the Inistow road, when his ear caught the beat of hoofs approaching at a gallop through the darkness.  He quartered and cried hullo! as the rider drew close.  On the moors it was unusual to meet a rider at night; nobody rode so hard unless for a doctor, and no doctor dwelt in this direction.

“Hullo, friend!”

“Hullo!”

The rider reined up, and by the light of his lamps Parson Chichester recognised the young giant Roger.

“What’s your errand, my friend?”

“To Culvercoombe.  The children—­”

“Miss Sally has left by the night train.  I drove her over to Fair Anchor myself.  What of the children?  We were expecting them all the afternoon.”

“They are gone—­lost!  Last night, as we reckon, they took the boat and made a bolt for it.  All this day we’ve been searching, and an hour agone word comes from the coast-guard that the boat has driven ashore, empty, on Clatworthy beach.”