“I shouldn’t try that again if I were you, miss,” he said respectfully. “You might hurt yourself. Besides, all those things are wired to alarms in the house.”

The girl stooped to brush herself. When she arose she flashed an ingenuous smile towards the man.

“I just wanted a look round,” she explained, “I wasn’t trying to run away. I want to know where I am.”

Tom shifted his straw to another angle, and before answering flung it to the ground. “There’s miles of marshes round this place, miss. Acres and acres with big dykes crisscrossing them and no roads to speak of. I’d be afraid of trying to cross a maze like that.”

“But, Tom⁠—your name is Tom, isn’t it?⁠—I can feel the sea.”

“Yes, miss. The sea’s away about a mile over there.” He waved an arm vaguely to the right. “Difficult to get to and a lonely waste of shingle if you do.”