expression with which he was being regarded. The
little vehicle came to a standstill only a few feet away. Mr. Fentolin
leaned forward. His features had lost their delicately benevolent
aspect; his words were minatory.

"I am under the impression, sir," he said, "that I saw you with my
glasses from the window attempting to force an entrance into that
building."

Hamel nodded.

"I not only tried but I succeeded," he remarked. "I got in through the
window."

Mr. Fentolin's eyes glittered for a moment. Hamel, who had resumed his
place upon the rock close at hand, had been mixed up during his lifetime
in many wild escapades. Yet at that moment he had a sudden feeling that
there were dangers in life which as yet he had not faced.

"May I ask for your explanation or your excuse?"

"You can call it an explanation or an excuse, whichever you like," Hamel
replied steadily, "but the fact is that this little building, which
some one else seems to have appropriated, is mine. If I had not been
a good-natured person, I should be engaged, at the present moment, in
turning out its furniture on to the beach."

"What is your name?" Mr. Fentolin asked suddenly.

"My name is Hamel--Richard Hamel."

For several moments there was silence. Mr. Fentolin was still leaning
forward in his strange little vehicle. The colour seemed to have left
even his lips. The hard glitter in his eyes had given place to an
expression almost like fear. He looked at Richard Hamel as though he
were some strange sea-monster come up from underneath the sands.

"Richard Hamel," he repeated. "Do you mean that you are the son of
Hamel, the R.A., who used to be in these parts so often? He was my
brother's friend."

"I am his son."

"But his son was killed in the San Francisco earthquake. I saw his name
in all the lists. It was copied into the local papers here."

Hamel knocked the ashes from his pipe.

"I take a lot of killing," he observed. "I was in that earthquake, right
enough, and in the hospital afterwards, but it was a man named Hamel of
Philadelphia who died."

Mr. Fentolin sat quite motionless for several moments. He seemed, if
possible, to have shrunken into something smaller still. A few yards
behind, Meekins had alighted from his bicycle and was standing waiting.

"So you are Richard Hamel," Mr. Fentolin said at last very softly.
"Welcome back to England, Richard Hamel! I knew your father slightly,
although we were never very friendly."