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    Charlotte remembered that Richard had always given the impression of being rich. And, in fact he had admitted it.
    “I believe it belonged to another branch of the family. In fact I’m almost sure it was his uncle who sold the place to Great-Aunt Jane.” “Then your great-aunt was probably doing him a service when she bought it.”
    Charlotte looked doubtful.
    “Aunt Jane wasn’t even Cornish!”
    Hannah smiled at her and waved her hands in the air.
    “Don’t be sentimental,” she implored. “A business transaction is a business transaction, and at the moment the house is yours. My advice to you is to hang on to it... for a while, at least. I realise you haven’t the money to live here in the same way that your great-aunt lived here, but that doesn’t mean you have to rush into a sale because someone else insists on it! I don’t like the sound of this man one bit. He sounds arrogant and inconsiderate, and he must have followed you all the way down from London when you left it. You say that he was actually staying at the local inn when you arrived?”
    “I found out later that he had booked a room by telephone and arrived about half an hour before me.”
    Hannah frowned.
    “I hope you left him in no doubt that you were unlikely to change your mind?”
    “I did.”
    “And if he comes here pestering you again I’ll help you deal with him.” Nothing further was said that night about turning Tremarth into a convalescent home, but before they went to bed Hannah put an arm somewhat clumsily about Charlotte’s shoulders and squeezed affectionately.
    “When in doubt, do nothing,” she advocated. “Get your bearings... and leave it to your Aunt Hannah to think out some escape from your difficulties if the problem really arises! And now I feel so tired, as a result of all this good sea air that is filling the house, that I expect to sleep like a log in my four-poster bed, and I hope you’ll do so in yours!”
    The two girls parted outside Charlotte’s door, and while Hannah went to test the temperature of the bath water in their adjoining bathroom Charlotte walked across to her window and stood looking out across the open expanse of cliff on to which the rambling gardens of Tremarth abutted, and straight out to sea.
    It was rather a cloudy night, and there was no moon at this hour. She remembered that on the previous night Richard Tremarth had said he was waiting for the moonrise to discover some of the old familiar places he had known when he was a boy.
    She had actually seen him walking on the sands below the inn, and had wondered whether he would have the audacity to peer into darkened caves in which he had once pretended he was a smuggler, or venture into the silent woods that crept down with the creek to the murmuring seas’ edge. She was absolutely certain those woods had figured very largely in his activities when he was a boy, and as this was a nostalgic pilgrimage he was making
    — apart from his intention of acquiring Tremarth — he would not overlook one tiny comer that could be revisited, especially once a cold round moon stole up out of the sea.
    Charlotte was about to draw her curtains over her window when her eye was caught by something on the cliff top, and she went closer to the glass to concentrate her full attention upon whatever it was. In the end she decided that it was a stationary beam of a pair of dipped car lights, and the vehicle itself was quite indistinguishable in the gloom. She stood listening to the booming voice of the sea breaking on the rocks at the foot of the cliffs, and while she did so the car lights moved slowly forward until they disappeared like pale sword- thrusts into the night.
    The last thing she was able to make out before the car finally disappeared was a twinkling rear light that reminded her of the twinkling eye of a ruby under the slow-moving pall of thick white cloud.
    The mass of cloud moved out to sea, and the stars shone forth and the motionless