For once Mrs. Penruddock was mistaken in her calculations. Bevis did not come back. His supper waited in the oven, and his room over the kitchen was ready, but the potatoes were spoilt, and his bed was never slept in. Nobody in Chagmouth had seen anything of him, and all inquiries were in vain. Day after day passed without bringing news of the truant. When Mavis and Merle motored over with Dr. Tremayne on the following Saturday they found sad trouble at Grimbal's Farm.

"It's not like Bevis," proclaimed Mrs. Penruddock. "He's never treated us in this way before. To run off without a word when he'd know well enough we'd take his part even if there was a little trouble with The Warren. We thought he might have gone to his school, and we telegraphed to the headmaster, but they'd seen nothing of him. We're afraid the silly lad must have tramped to Port Sennen, and got on some vessel there. If that's so goodness knows where he may be by now, or when we shall have a letter from him. If we could only be sure he was all right we shouldn't mind so much. It's this waiting that wears one out. Young folks don't think of all it means to their elders when they do these things. I can't sleep at nights for worrying. The place doesn't seem the same without Bevis. Such a good lad he's always been too."

Mrs. Penruddock's pleasant face looked quite puckered, and there was a choke in her voice which she had to cough away. She was busier than usual, and hurried off into the dairy to serve customers who came for their Saturday portions of scalded cream. (Chagmouth people could not eat their Sunday tea without jam and cream on their bread.) She missed her foster-son's help with the poultry, and in many other matters. He had never shirked work on the farm, and had always been ready to lend a strong hand when she needed it.

Mavis and Merle, strolling round the stackyard, agreed with her. The place was certainly not the same without Bevis. It seemed very slack and slow indeed now he was gone. To kill time before lunch, while Dr. Tremayne saw his patients in the surgery, the girls took a walk down the town towards the beach. Midway in the quaint steep street there was a spot railed off where people could sit on benches and look out over the sea. It was a favourite lounge, and two or three old fishermen were generally there discussing catches and tides, or the village invalids were sunning themselves and collecting local news. In the middle stood a flagstaff where the Union Jack was kept flying. To-day as the Ramsays passed this observation point they noticed that the flag was at half-mast.

"I wonder what's the matter?" said Merle.

"I don't know. Somebody dead, I suppose, and we haven't heard yet. I hope it's not the King! Shall I ask?"

"Yes, do. Ask that old man!"

"Oh, I daren't! You do!"

Merle, having more courage with strangers, made the necessary inquiry. The blue-jerseyed individual whom she addressed pulled his pipe from his mouth and grunted a reply:

"It's General Talland as is gone. There was a telegram come this morning from the West Indies. He was only sixty-one. He ought to a' been good for another ten year or more."

"They do say the climate is awful over there," chimed one of the loungers, quite willing to discuss the event.

"Ay! He should a' stayed in his native air!"

Other listeners had strolled up and began to give their opinions.

"I don't hold with foreign parts myself."

"Not to live, though it's nice to see them."

"There's always fever about in those hot places."

"He'll be buried out there!"

"And his son was buried in India!"

"It seems as if the luck was against the family."

"Mr. Glyn Williams will be for buying the property now!" "If he can get hold of it."

"It's what he's been after ever since he came here."

"Well, I suppose he'd make a better landlord than some."

Mavis and Merle were not remarkably interested in General Talland, so they said "Thank you" for the information they had received, and walked down to the shore, where they amused themselves till it was time to return for lunch. When they got back to Grimbal's Farm, however, they found Mrs. Penruddock full of the news, which she had learnt from some of her customers.

"It seems trouble on trouble," she declared. "Everybody is saying that Mr. Glyn Williams will be sure to get hold of the estate now, and with our lease just falling in, and this business between Bevis and young Williams which they'll likely not forgive, we may be turned out of the farm for all I know. I came here when I was married twenty-five years ago, and Mr. Penruddock was born here. It would break our hearts to have to go anywhere else."

"Oh, I hope it won't be as bad as that!" said Mavis consolingly.

At lunch-time the girls told Uncle David about the matter.

"Will Mr. Glyn Williams really buy the property?" asked Mavis.

"I don't think he can," replied Dr. Tremayne; "the estate's entailed." "What's 'entailed'?" said Merle, looking puzzled.

"It's a legal term, which means that a property cannot be sold, but must always pass to the next heir in the male line, so that the owner really only has a life interest in it."

"And who is the heir then?"

"A distant cousin of General Talland's, Mr. George Talland, a most unsuitable man from all accounts. I believe he spends most of his time gaming at Monte Carlo. Very probably he will make the same arrangement as before with Mr. Glyn Williams, and will let him the The Warren and the shooting. There's a possibility, though, that Mr. George Talland and his son might 'cut the entail'. If owner and heir both agree to sell a property they can legally do so, and they might care to have the ready money and settle up their debts rather than only the income of the estate."

"Pity General Talland hadn't a son to leave it to."

"Yes, poor Austin. He died in India. It must be fifteen years ago now. There was a persistent rumour at the time that he'd been privately married out there, and had a son of his own, but no wife and child ever turned up to claim his heritage, which they would most certainly have done if they had existed. It was all gossip and hearsay. People love to invent these stories, but when you come to sift them there's no truth in them. I'm sorry the estate will go to the George Tallands. The son—also a George—has six daughters, but no son, so the male line comes to an end in that direction. That's why I fancy they may cut the entail—to get a little money for the girls. It seems a sad pity for an old family to die out absolutely. There have been Tallands at Chagmouth from time immemorial. After the younger George goes, the name will become quite extinct. Many of the old Devon families have died away like that for want of heirs."

The troubles of the Tallands seemed to Mavis and Merle quite a minor business, however, compared with the overwhelming misfortune of Bevis's running away. They did not quite know what to do with themselves after lunch. They would have gone with Uncle David to the Sanatorium, but he wished to drive a patient up there, and had no room for them in the car. They might of course have gone to The Warren, where they had a general invitation to play tennis, but they hesitated, partly because they felt a delicacy in going without being definitely asked and certain of welcome, and partly because after what had happened the week before they were not very keen to meet Tudor. They could not forget the way he had taunted Bevis, and they had not yet forgiven him for it.

"Gwen would be sure to say something nasty about last Saturday," ventured Merle, who had carefully avoided the Williamses at school on French days.

"I vote we go a walk by ourselves," decided Mavis.

So they set off, and instinctively their steps turned in the direction of their dismantled bower. They did not, however, choose the upper road to it, which would have led them over the forbidden fence, but went the same way as on their first visit, taking the footpath among the woods. Spring had come since they were there before, and had brought out the leaves, so that the sea was seen through a screen of greenery. The primroses were nearly over, but hyacinths were opening like a blue cloud, and great purple orchises were shooting up. In clumps at the edges of the cliff bloomed the pink thrift and white sea-campion, and patches of the yellow lady's-fingers. Merle thought she heard the cuckoo, though Mavis was certain it was only a little boy who was anticipating the well-known call. They lingered and loitered for a long time in the wood, picking flowers and hunting about for birds' nests, and wishing Bevis were there to find them for them. At last they left the trees behind, and coming out on to the headland reached the grassy plateau that jutted out from the sloping cliff.

The cave looked very dark and particularly "spooky" to-day. Merle peeped timorously inside, and turned away shuddering. Mavis, more deeply interested, ventured farther. She had neither matches nor candle, and could only trust to the faint twilight that reigned within. It seemed to her as if in a dark corner a heap of something was lying. She did not think it had been there on their former visit. Wild thoughts of smugglers and contraband goods flashed into her mind. Were there smugglers nowadays? Was it a bale of silk or a case of champagne that was being stored there for safety? With rather a fluttering feeling she crept nearer. It was no case of wine or bale of silk; in the darkness it looked more like a tumbled bundle of clothing. What could it be? She was frightened, and almost turned to go; but some attraction greater far than curiosity seemed to draw her on. She was quite close to it now. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light, and she could just distinguish the sleeping figure of a boy, covered with a mackintosh coat.

"Bevis!" she whispered. "Oh, Bevis!"

He roused at her voice, and sprang to his feet with a cry, turning to her such a white, haunted face that she scarcely knew him. Merle ran forward from the entrance, and seeing both the girls he came slowly towards them.

"It's you, is it?" he said. "Have you brought the police with you?"

"Police! Why no, Bevis, of course not!"

"Why should we?"

He put his hand wearily to his head. His face was very pale, and his eyes were bright and big with dark rings round them.

"No, you wouldn't bring them, I know, but they'll come all the same! I'm wanted. Wanted by the police. They're after me!"

"Oh, Bevis, don't talk like this! No police want you. Why don't you go home?"

"Go home! Go to Chagmouth! His ghost would stop me! Tell me, where have they buried him?"

"Buried whom?" "Why, Tudor Williams of course—the poor boy that I murdered."

"But Tudor's all right. He wasn't really much hurt. He walked home."

Bevis stared searchingly at Mavis, then shook his head.

"I know he's dead. It's no use telling me he isn't. I murdered him. Haven't I heard the bell tolling for his funeral? It never stops. I tell you it never stops. I hear it night and day, and I feel like Cain!"

The girls glanced at one another. Bevis was plainly very ill. He looked ghastly, and his knees trembled so greatly that he had to lean against the wall of the cave.

"Where have you been all this week?" Mavis asked him.

"I don't know. Here mostly, I think. I thought I'd walk to Port Sennen and try to get on board a ship, but somehow I feel weak. Perhaps I could get off to-night if I tried."

"Come home, Bevis," persuaded Merle.

But he sank down again on to the bed of leaves which he had made, and drew the mackintosh coat over him.

"It's so cold," he shivered. "First I'm burning hot and then I'm cold. It's the curse of Cain!"

Mavis took Merle's arm, and drew her outside the cave.

"He's in a high fever, and simply raving," she whispered. "He's not fit to walk home even if we could get him to try. You go back to the farm and tell Mrs. Penruddock, and I'll stay here. We mustn't both leave him or he might wander off somewhere on to the cliffs. Be as quick as you can."

"I shall run all the way," declared Merle. "Oh, the poor boy. Think of staying here by himself the whole week."

Mavis went back into the cave, and kneeling down by Bevis tried to soothe him. She had been ill so often herself that she could sympathize as he shuddered and shivered. His hands were burning hot, and his great dark eyes shone like fires in his white face. She told him over and over again that Tudor was safe; but he scarcely seemed to understand, and kept moaning that he had murdered him.

"I'm not fit for any one to speak to. It's the curse of Cain," he repeated.

Meantime Merle, who was swift of foot and had won many long-distance races at school sports, flew back to Chagmouth with record speed, and carried her news to Grimbal's Farm. Mrs. Penruddock was in the kitchen. She ran at once and called her husband from where he was working in the orchard.

"I'll put the horse in the trap," he said briefly. "We'll go by the upper road, and then slip across the fields to the cave. Best take his overcoat and a rug."

Merle went with them, not that she could be of any special use, but because she simply could not stop behind, and after all she was able to render a service, for she held the horse while Mr. and Mrs. Penruddock hurried down the fields to the cave. They came back after a short time half-carrying Bevis along, with Mavis, looking extremely grave, walking beside them. They lifted him into the trap, and drove him home, meeting Dr. Tremayne on the very doorstep.

The Doctor shook his head when he heard of the nights in the damp cave.

"Get him to bed, and we'll do our best," was his verdict. "He has youth and strength on his side at any rate. Please God we'll pull him round again. I've seen people worse than he is, Mrs. Penruddock, so keep your heart up. While there's life there's hope, remember. That's a proverb I always tell my patients, and one of the best that was ever invented."

"I know, Doctor," gulped poor Mrs. Penruddock. "I know if anybody can pull him through, you will. But it's hard to see him looking like this all the same—Bevis, who's hardly had a day's illness in his life before."