Very slowly she unknotted the handkerchief from about her arm, and laying the blood-stained square of linen on her knee, proceeded to examine each corner carefully.  In one of them she found the initials M.E., very finely worked.

CHAPTER IV

CRAILING RECTORY

The early morning mist still lingered in the valleys and clung about the river banks as the Reverend Alan Stair, returning from his matutinal dip in the sea, swung up the lane and pushed open the door giving access from it to the Rectory grounds.  The little wooden door, painted green and overhung with ivy, was never bolted.  In the primitive Devon village of Crailing such a precaution would have been deemed entirely superfluous; indeed, the locking of the door would probably have been regarded by the villagers as equivalent to a reflection on their honesty, and should the passage of time ultimately bring to the ancient rectory a fresh parson, obsessed by conventional opinion concerning the uses of bolts and bars, it is probable that the inhabitants of Crailing will manifest their disapproval in the simple and direct fashion of the Devon rustic—­by placidly boycotting the church of their fathers and betaking themselves to the chapel round the corner.  The little green door, innocent of lock and key, stood as a symbol of the close ties that bound the rector and his flock together, and woe betide the iconoclast who should venture to tamper with it.

The Rectory itself was a picturesque old house with latticed windows and thatched roof; the climbing roses, which in summer clothed it in a garment of crimson and pink and white, now shrouded its walls with a network of brown stems and twigs tipped with emerald buds.  Beneath the warmth of the morning sun the damp was steaming from the weather-stained thatch in a cloud of pearly mist, while the starlings, nesting under the overhanging eaves, broke into a harsh twittering of alarm at the sound of the Rectory footsteps.

Alan Stair was a big, loose-limbed son of Anak, with little of the conventional cleric in his appearance as he came striding across the dewy lawn, clad in a disreputable old suit of grey tweeds and with his bathing-towel slung around his shoulders.  His hands were thrust deep into his pockets, and since he had characteristically omitted to provide himself with a hat, his abundant brown hair was rumpled and tossed by the wind, giving him an absurdly boyish air.

Arrived at the flagged path which ran the whole length of the house he sent up a Jovian shout, loud enough to arouse the most confirmed of sluggards from his slumbers, and one of the upper lattice windows flew open in response.

“That you, Dad?” called a fresh young voice.

“Sounds like it, doesn’t it?” he laughed back.  “Come down and give me my breakfast.  There’s a beautifully assorted smell of coffee and fried bacon wafting out from the dining room, and I can’t bear it any longer.”