But almost before Miss Limpenny had concluded these reflections, the strangers had determined on the direction.  They turned neither towards the Town nor up the hill towards the Castle and the harbour’s mouth; but down the little road which led to Bower Slip and the Penpoodle Ferryboat.

“Gracious me!” exclaimed Miss Limpenny; “they are going to take a boat.”

The words were scarcely out of her mouth, when she was seized with a sudden idea—­an idea so alluring, yet so bold withal, that the blood flew from her cheeks.  She made a step forward, paused, took another step, and returned to the window.  The strangers had turned down the road and were out of sight.

For a full minute she stood there, tapping her foot.

“I will,” she said, with sudden determination.  “I will!” On Miss Limpenny’s maiden lip the words were as solemn as though she spoke them at the altar.  “I will,—­and—­I don’t care what happens!”

Awful words!  Awful in themselves, more awful from such lips, but surely most awful as making the second-step in the moral decadence of Troy!

Yet I would not have my readers too excited.  They were words to shudder at, indeed; but the immediate consequences were not bloody—­ they were only to a limited degree tragic.  It must be remembered that the magnificence of all actions is relative to the performer, nor would I seek to exalt Miss Limpenny to the level of a Semiramis or a Dido; only, when I say that she bore a great soul in a little body, I say no more than that she was a Trojan.

In short, Miss Limpenny did not, as the reader may have expected, take a boat and pursue after the strangers.  What she did was simply to descend swiftly to the front hall, take down from its stand an antique, brass-bound telescope of enormous proportions, and with it make her way swiftly to the back door.

The back gardens of Alma Villas ran parallel to each other, and were terminated by a high wall, with a quay-door apiece, a tall ladder leading from the door straight down to the water.  At the end of the garden, and built against this wall, in each case a stone terrace with a flight of steps allowed any one who chose to climb, and even perform a limited promenade while enjoying a full view of the harbour beyond.

It was to this flight of steps that Miss Limpenny, with a prayer on her lips and the telescope under her arm, made her way.

Both terrace and steps were rickety to a degree.  To help you to estimate her conduct at its full temerity I may mention that Miss Limpenny had never attempted the climb before in her life.  But whatever qualms she may have felt, they did not appear in her behaviour.  Gingerly, but without hesitation, and clutching the telescope, which impeded her as an ice-axe the rock-climber, she essayed all the perils of this maiden ascent.

Five minutes’ stiff climbing, as they say in the Alpine Journal, brought her to a point where she could take breath and look about her.  Despite her terror, the excitement and the light breeze now blowing over the arete of garden wall, had brought a flush to her cheek.  But scarcely had she resumed and set her foot upon the summit, when the flush suddenly faded, and left her blanched as snow.