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Curious, she watched as the figure neared the gate and in the light of the lamp became familiar. She glanced at the luminous face of her wrist watch and frowned. What possible reason could John Miller have for leaving his house at after midnight? He was, she noticed, wearing dark clothing, a contrast to his usual light garb, and her heart lurched uncomfortably as she watched him pass the gate of Smuggler’s Rest, obviously intent on remaining unseen.

She bit her lip as excitement and apprehension mingled dizzily in her brain, and decided in one irretrievable moment to follow him. Her dress was dark enough to be fairly obscure at night and her shoes would make little or no noise since they had rubber soles. Unthinking of the consequences, she put on a dark jacket to cover the paler colour of her arms and left the house, she hoped without disturbing her aunt, her heart thudding against her ribs alarmingly.

He had been walking in the direction of Quay Road, but after that, she thought, she would have to rely on luck, for she would not dare to get too close behind him for fear of being seen. The people of Mare Green, as a general rule, were not nocturnal creatures but retired early to their beds, except possibly the younger element of whom there were few but the Dennisons.

Turning into Quay Road, Katie was in time to see the tall figure she was following turn left along the quay towards the cliffs. He would scarcely, she thought, be calling at his grandfather’s house at this late hour, so his destination must either be the cliffs or the boat. She hesitated for a moment as she came on to the open quay, the night breeze cooling her hot face, for she could not see him at first, and then he walked into the yellow patch of the last street lamp before the cliff path, his fair head catching the reflected light and looking almost white.

He looked neither left at Coral House nor right at the moored
Sea Mist,
but disappeared, long-legged and stealthy, out of the lamplight and into the darkness beyond. Katie found herself balling her hands into fists in the pockets of her jacket as she walked, tense and expecting at any moment that he would step out in front of her, wishing fervently that she had not ventured on this foolhardy escapade. Curiosity, she reminded herself, had killed many a cat, and leaving the comforting familiarity of the street lamps she paused at the foot of the cliff path, uncertain whether or not to go on.

Only the lazy hiss and whisper of the sea broke the stillness, and the pale glimmer of a new moon made a ribbony shimmer across the water. It was very beautiful and very tempting to walk on the narrow footpath along the cliff top, even though the gorse bushes took on fantastic shapes and cast strange shadows behind them. She had little hope of seeing John Miller again unless he stayed on the path, but at this spot there were several other paths leading down to the road that led to St. Miram, any of which he could have taken.

She passed the place which had become her favourite during the time she had been staying here; the high, prickly gorse that shaded her from the sun now seeming larger and less friendly as it cast a dark shadow on the springy turf. A faint sound of movement made her start nervously and she stopped in her tracks, her heart racing madly, her eyes wide and searching the shadowed turf behind the bushes. She held her breath so long listening that her head began to throb and she released the air slowly, telling herself not to be a fool, that it was nothing but a bird stirring in the bushes, but she hesitated to turn her back on the memory of the sound.

Another few steps and she became uneasily aware that she was not alone; another faint movement behind her convinced her that she was right. While she had been following John Miller someone else had been following her! She felt a shiver of cold fear run through her and dared not turn or stop for fear of what might be behind her. Her heart beat rapidly against her ribs and her head throbbed with dizzying questions as she walked unseeing along the moonlit path above the sea. She had never been this far along it before and found that it sloped upwards steeply to much higher cliffs, nearer the edge of an alarming drop and further away from the road which was not even visible from here.

The movements behind her now sounded to her fearful ears more bold, as if they were far enough away from any possible discovery for it not to matter if she screamed, which she felt more and more like doing. Then suddenly, with frightening realisation she was no longer walking on packed sand, the reassuring hardness of the path had petered out and she was on turf; there was no longer any safe guide to the edge of the cliffs. With the stilling of her own footsteps she could hear the soft swish of her pursuer’s and she turned, eyes wide with panic.

“Katie!” The voice came from behind her, not in front, and she spun dizzily back and into the arms of John Miller. “What on earth are you doing here?” His voice, while still retaining its clipped, precise diction, was lowered to barely above a whisper. He held her at arm’s length, gripping her so tightly that his fingers dug into her arms and hurt her. “Answer me,” he said. “Why are you here?”

“I didn’t feel sleepy,” she lied miserably, “so I came out for a walk; but someone’s following me.” She glanced over her shoulder, panic rising in her again. “Someone was behind me!”

He looked past her to the moonlit turf, his eyes narrow and his jaw thrust out angrily. “Stay here,” he ordered, and pushed her without ceremony back into the thick spiny curve of a huge gorse bush, “and keep quiet, and for once in your life use what brain you have in that beautiful head of yours to do as you’re told!”

“Where are you going?” she ventured tremulously.

“Quiet!” The whispered command was scarcely comforting and she wished longingly for her soft bed at Smuggler’s Rest as she stood obediently still in the curve of the gorse and watched him move away.

She thought she heard voices, low and hoarsely whispering as his had been, but she could not be sure because of the sound of the sea below. She stood for what seemed an interminable time after he had gone and she had a cold,
unreasoning fear in her as she waited, the bush sighing around her as the breeze from the sea stirred it into
motion, adding to her uneasiness. He was not coming back! The longer she waited, the more convinced she became that he had no intention of coming for her arid the sting of angry, frightened tears pricked her eyes and rolled miserably down her cheeks.

Or perhaps, she chilled at the new thought, he had been hurt. The man who had followed her could have hit him and left him there. Her mind raced with a dozen possibilities, all of them fearful. She leaned out from the shelter of the gorse and looked back to the end of the path, it was surely better to keep off the path and in the shadows made by the bushes, she thought, and clenching her hands tightly, she stepped out on to the turf and moved cautiously towards the next patch of shadow.

She had moved scarcely ten yards when she stepped hack hastily, biting her lip to stop it trembling as she listened. The voices were quite audible now, and one of them was John Miller’s, unmistakable with its clipped precise delivery.

“What about the girl?” The question chilled her as she crouched in the shadows, a hand to her mouth, waiting for his reply.

“Don’t worry about the girl,” the clipped voice was confident. “Leave her to me, I’ll take care of her.”

Katie felt a shudder pass through her at the ruthlessness of the words and knew an unaccustomed ache as she realised how she must have misjudged him; to ever have thought him capable of gentleness and compassion. She listened, breathlessly, as the other man answered, doubtfully, she thought.

“Hmm,” he said, “if you’re sure she’s not likely to cause any trouble—”

“She won’t,” John Miller assured him. "I'll guarantee it.”

“Good.” The other man was apparently satisfied, for after a few brief words Katie heard him move off down the path towards Mare Green and she waited, trembling, as John Miller went back towards the concealing gorse where he had left her. It would be only a matter of minutes, she realised, before he discovered she had gone and started looking for her with heaven knew what evil intent in mind.

She prepared to run as hard as she could down the cliff path and back home, then gasped audibly as she realised that the other man was somewhere on the way back down that path and with John Miller behind her she was trapped between the two of them.

“Katie!” She resisted the impulse to answer as he called softly, moving nearer, she could tell, as he repeated her name. “Katie !”

Blind panic sent her running from the concealing bushes and info the moonlight, past him as he stood near the bush she had hidden in and on, up the steep blankness of the dark turf.

“Katie!” He raised his voice now, no longer cautious, a strange urgency in his call. “Katie, for God’s sake be careful! Come back !”

She ran on blindly, avoiding the edge of the cliff only by sheer instinct, her mind filled with only one thought, to escape, anywhere away from him. A white board loomed at her, leaning drunkenly in the moonlight, almost tripping her but stopping her headlong flight as she looked down at the endless drop into the sea below.

Hands covering her face at the nearness of her escape, she stood, breathing unevenly, deeply, almost in sobs as he came running up to her and took her in his arms, holding her close and tight as if he would never let her go.

“Katie, Katie!” She could feel the heavy pounding of his heart under her hands as she lay against him, her face still hidden, and stayed there trembling while they both recovered from the momentary panic.

He moved at last, lifting his face from the dishevelled cloud of her hair and holding her away from him, looking down at her in part fear, part anger. “You might have been killed,” he said, with a trace of his usual manner. “What on earth possessed you?”

“It might have saved you the trouble,” she said miserably, trying to move from the hard circle of his arms.

“And just what is that supposed to mean?” he asked quietly.

“I overheard you,” she admitted, wondering whether it was wise to tell him, and deciding that her position could hardly be worse if he intended to carry out his threat. She turned accusing eyes on him. “You
knew
the man who was following me,” she said. “You were there to meet him.”

“I told you to stay where I left you,” he said shortly. “I might have known it was expecting too much of you.”

‘You were so
long,”
she said. '‘I—I thought you’d gone and left me, or that something had happened to you. Then I thought I heard voices.”

“More voices!” he taunted her. “You heard voices once before, below the cliff.”

“And I
did
hear them,” she flared at him, “I know I did!”

He sighed deeply, shaking his head despairingly. “So you decided to listen. How much did you hear, Katie?”

“Enough!” she retorted.

“How much?” he insisted, his voice dangerously quiet so that she felt a twinge of her former fear.

“I heard the other man say 'what about the girl?’ ” she said, her heart beating uneasily fast, “and I heard you say that you would take care of me.”

“Not for the first time,” he pointed out, his arms strong about her, “I’ve taken care of you before, Katie. You have a knack of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I thought
—"
she lowered her eyes before the intensity of his gaze, disconcerting even in the dim obscurity of the moonlight. “I—I thought you meant it differently.”

‘You thought I meant to kill you?” Said openly and blankly like that it sounded incredible, but she still felt uneasy.

‘Yes,” she admitted, “that was why I ran, I couldn’t go down the way I came up or the other man would have seen me.”

“So you chose Lovers’ Leap?” he said, and she frowned curiously.

“Lovers’ Leap?”

“Yes, that’s what it’s called.” He kicked the drunken board that had halted her flight and saved her life. “It’s the most dangerous piece of coast around here.” He released her from one arm and pushed the board upright with his free hand. “We should erect a monument to it,” he said. “It saved your life.”

“Perhaps you’re sorry it did,” Katie said, looking at the white-painted board. She looked up at him apprehensively. “How are you going to take care of me?” she asked. ‘You guaranteed I wouldn’t cause you any trouble. How do you know I won’t?”

“I don’t,” he admitted, “and how I deal with you depends on how far I can trust you; how difficult you decide to be.”

“Suppose I
do
decide to be difficult?” she ventured, her heart racing so hard she was sure he must know it as he again held her with both arms round her.

“Then,” he said casually, “I shall throw you over Lovers’ Leap myself.”

“John!” She tried to move away from him, but he merely tightened his hold on her. “I believe you would too,” she said, her eyes wide as she looked at him.

“I would,” he promised solemnly.

“Perhaps if it isn’t anything very awful—” she looked doubtful, then gasped suddenly as a thought flashed into her mind. “Smuggling!” she exclaimed, her relief patent in her voice. ‘You’re smuggling!”

“What made you pick on that?” he asked quietly, watching her steadily.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she smiled at him, some of her fear banished. “You wouldn’t be involved in anything
very
terrible,” she said with conviction. “I’m sure of it.”

“And smuggling isn’t very terrible?” he asked.

“Well, no,” she said. “Everybody does smuggling on a small scale, don’t they? It’s the accepted thing when people go abroad. There’s no harm in bringing in a few extra cigarettes or some brandy, if that’s what real smugglers do, is there?”

“You
are
a romantic,” he said wryly. “You make smuggling sound like a schoolboy lark.”

“That is what it is, I’m sure,” she said, almost anxious for him to agree.