gets you, and you begin to tear off your clothes and pitch them in every direction as you run. Nearly every fellow ever found after being lost is stark naked—begging your pardon, Miss,” he added as his eye fell upon Vivienne. She took no notice. The rain had stopped, and she fled before she should hear more horrors.

But that night she could not sleep for thinking of the lost little child, and its desolate mother. The storm commenced again, and raged round the hut. Lightning streaked through the canvas windows and rain lashed the earth. She was still wide-eyed on a tear-wet pillow when the hotel-keeper banged the door to say that the coach would start in twenty minutes.

The first thing she noticed as they clambered to their places was that the light-eyed man was missing. She was far too distant to make any remark, but the others with a kind of road-fellowship that surprised her refused to let the coach start until some explanation was forthcoming. The driver, a ferocious looking half-caste, scowled at them.

“Ach! He’s gone off on some business of his own if you want to know... and coming on by de next coach. Now will you stop wasting de Company’s time and let me drive my mules?”

So on they went through the fresh dawn. The rain-washed land gave up a delicious perfume of drenched leaves and growing things, and a scent of mimosa blew like a caress against the cheeks of the weary travellers. The sky was a bride in shroudy veils of pale pink that warmed to rose, until the great spiked sun shot up from behind the horizon, and took her in a glittering embrace. Then brazen day was on them once more.

They slept in the coach that night, and got little ease of it. All were thankful enough when next mid-day found them outspanned for an hour or two beside a mule stable. The driver made a fire, and the passengers unpacked their baskets. Vivienne was sick to death of tinned food, but glad to accept a cup of tea made in the kettle. Afterwards she strolled away to an open pool not far off, while the others snatched the chance of an hour’s sleep in the shadow of the stable.

The little pool or “pan” of water lay glittering in the sunshine and she sat beside it under a tree shaped like a candelabra with great scarlet and yellow flowers rising in flames from its branches. She was too careful of her complexion to attempt to wash in such torrid heat, but she did not mind her hands getting slightly sunburnt for the pleasure of laving them in the tepid water. Presently a charming little creature of the squirrel tribe came out of a bush and looked at her with bright eyes. She took a pellet of chocolate from inside her camera case and held it out invitingly, but the tiny creature backed a little, then sat up on its hind legs and cocked its head at her. She took out her camera and tried to snap it, but it ran again just at the critical moment. The same thing happened two or three times, until she got a good picture. Then she tried once more to beguile it with the chocolate. But whenever she got close, it bounded away. At last, she gave up, and was suddenly astonished to find how far she had come from her pool. Glittering there through the trees it appeared to be quite a quarter of a mile away. Yet that seemed scarcely possible.

“How silly of me!” she murmured. “This is just the way people get lost I expect,” and at the thought she noticed a distinct inclination in her feet to hurry, but did not permit them any such foolishness.

“Don’t be silly,” she repeated to herself. “What are you afraid of? There is the pool straight in front of you, and as soon as you reach it you will see the coach.”

So she forced herself to walk calmly, and all the time she marvelled at the distance she had come just in those few little short runs after the squirrel. And when she got to the pool there was no sign of the coach!

“This is too fantastic!” she exclaimed, and laughed aloud. But her laugh had such a strange sound that she thought it was some one else’s and turned round violently to see who was there. Then she drew nearer the pool, and saw that the tree growing by it was a smaller one than the one she had sat under, and had fewer flowers. At last she realised it was a different pool. But there was no other in sight! Her heart came up into her throat.

“I must go back the way I came,” she told herself steadily. “When I get to where I first saw this pool I shall not be far off the original one. It was probably behind my back all the time, and if I had turned round I should have seen it!”

So with her nerves well in hand she began to walk back the way she had come. She could not keep quite straight, on account of the trees dotted about everywhere, each the exact image of the other, and she kept turning round because for some reason she could not bear to lose sight of one pool before she regained the other. Suddenly far off she spied the gleam of water through trees, and at once she frankly hurried, telling herself she had been away long enough from the coach and that the driver would be waiting to start. Her last few steps were very swift. She was breathing quite heavily when she reached the pool and glanced round keenly for the coach. It was gone! What was more the stable was gone too! She gave a wild cry. Her knees weakened under her and she found herself sitting down.

Presently regaining her courage she got up and looked about her critically. It was then she saw that there was no candelabra tree by this pool. That shook her a little.

“Better call out,” was her next thought, and she followed it up by a shout that sounded absurdly like a baby crying from a pin-prick. She was reminded of the little lost child, and began to tremble in spite of herself. “I’ll get out into the open,” she thought. “There are too many trees here. They shut in my voice.”

She moved a little way off and called. Then again she walked on and called. Mechanically she found herself moving along, calling as she went. Her voice seemed to grow weaker every moment, but her steps grew quicker. At last, she began to run.

Something tickled her face, and lazily, for she was very tired, and there was a rushing noise in her ears, she put up her hand to brush the irritation away. Then her hand tickled too. She held it before her eyes and saw that it was covered with little black ants. At that, her aversion to creeping things galvanised her into movement, and she sprang up, frantically brushing scores of ants from her face and hands. It was then she realised that she had been lying face downwards on the ground. She must have fallen, and lain where she fell. How long ago that was she had no idea, but the sun was very low. She could see it in the reddened skies just behind some trees.

The next discovery she made was a still stranger one. When she set out on her journey she had been dressed in a suit of khaki-coloured duck, made in three pieces; a Norfolk coat, a short deerstalker skirt that could be unhooked and taken off like a modern riding-habit, and, underneath, a serviceable pair of riding-breeches of the same material. These were met at the knees by leather gaiters. Stout brown shoes, and a dark silk shirt completed the suit, the whole having been designed and beautifully made by a well-known man in Bond Street; for with her mental eyes fixed on millionaires, Miss Carlton had not thought it wise to be economical in the direction of clothes. She now discovered herself to be attired only in the silk shirt and riding-breeches. Her boots and gaiters were scratched and worn almost beyond recognition; her hat, coat, skirt, and camera were gone. She had absolutely no idea how she had lost them, but some faint notion of searching for them