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where she had first met Martin Adair. There was no sign of him or anyone else about today, and for a moment Fenella paused. There was the first whisper of an evening breeze —Anthony would be able to make quite decent way in Wild Rose. As for herself—she hesitated. If only one didn’t have to pass Miss Prosser’s house on the way down to the harbour—
    She squared her shoulders. What if Miss Prosser did see her? What if she tried to stop and question her? It would be just too bad because, for once, if Miss Prosser started being inquisitive, she’d be told in so many words to mind her own business—and never mind the consequences !
    But as she passed the house there was no sign of Miss Prosser, although she wasn’t sure if the upstairs curtain didn’t move slightly. Down by the harbour she saw with relief that Wild Rose with Anthony aboard was well out in the estuary and beginning to find the breeze as he won clear of the two protecting headlands.
    As it happened, there was no one else about either, and Fenella experienced the first taste of the freedom and solitude she felt so desperately in need of. She found it in full measure a few moments later when she bent to the oars of her own little cockleshell of a dinghy, presented to her on her fourteenth birthday by Anthony and rather grandiloquently named The Golden Hind with all due ceremony and a bottle of ginger beer.
    The tide was almost at the full, so estuary and river looked at their glittering best. At dead low tide there would be only a sluggish channel and wide mud flats, but even that could be rather fun. One could get out of the skiff and walk beside it in water that barely reached one’s ankles.
    With the flow still slightly in her favour Fenella could have made quite good time without any very great exertion, but despite the heat of the day, she found satisfaction in making an all-out effort. It released some of the tensions that had built up during the afternoon.
    Suddenly her solitude was intruded upon.
    “Hi! ” yelled an amused voice. “What are you training for? The Olympic Games?''
    Fenella all but caught a crab. She was both startled and annoyed. She had no wish for company of any sort, but that the intruder should be Martin Adair was the very last straw!
    She had wondered vaguely where he was living during his stay in Fairhaven and now she had her answer.
    A medium-sized cabin cruiser which she recognised as one that was hired out during the summer months was moored against the opposite bank, and Martin, leaning on the rail, was grinning down at her.
    “We have got a trick of meeting, haven’t we?" he commented. “Almost as if it was planned—"
    “If I’d known you were here, I wouldn’t—” Fenella began, and stopped because it was clear that her annoyance was simply providing him with additional cause for amusement.
    “Have come within a mile?” he suggested. “Well, don’t worry. I wasn’t intending to suggest that I suspect you of running after me!”
    His impertinence infuriated Fenella beyond the point where any words of hers could be adequate. With lips pressed close, she began to row again, unpleasantly conscious that the wretched man was watching her with, she didn’t doubt, that amused look still on his face.
    And just why should he find her amusing? she thought angrily. If he had any decency at all, he'd still be feeling slightly abashed by the memory of their earlier meeting this afternoon. But not he! She couldn’t imagine any circumstances in which he wouldn’t feel entirely sure of himself!
    Which was more than she did at the moment. She hadn’t thought very coherently as to her reason for wanting to escape—nor from what she wanted to escape, but she had known that there were problems which she would only have a chance of solving if there was no one else about.
    And now, of all people, here was this Adair man—oh, not very near at hand, perhaps, but too near for comfort because—her forehead puckered. Her