Thus bent down, one could see objects against the sky more
distinctly and in a moment I spied the runner dimly, pattering down the
middle of the road straight for us. And then, in a few seconds, this
runner gradually took shape and my eyes at last could see the swing of a
skirt and thought they could even recognise the slim figure. I jumped up.
"Wait!" muttered my uncle.
"It's all right! We mustn't frighten her," I said.
I came out into the middle of the road and saw the other three rising at
the sides. The runner was barely twenty yards away by now and I heard her
gasp as she stopped abruptly.
"Miss Rendall?" I said.
The next moment she had rushed up to me, her eyes sparkling, her voice
coming in pants.
"Mr. Merton!" she panted and then her eyes fell on the others. "They've
come then--I'm so glad!--forgive me for wiring--but--look!"
She handed me something small and long-shaped. It was a spectacle case.
"Take them out!" she said.
We were all four gathered round her now and I heard my uncle say,
"Where's that torch of yours, Jack?"
Then the flash of my cousin's electric torch fell on the spectacles and
my heart leapt.
"The tinted spectacles!" I cried.
"Where did you find them?" demanded my uncle and cousin
simultaneously, and I could tell from their voices that all doubts had
vanished, and that, like me, they were burning now only with the
excitement of the chase.
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