m out in
calm weather. Fishermen who tried to come in by night were often trapped
there and, in a rough sea, drowned. That is why I had that pillar of
light built. On stormy nights it shows the exact entrance to the water
causeway."

"Very kind of you indeed," Hamel remarked, "very benevolent."

Mr. Fentolin sighed.

"So few people have any real feeling for sailors," he continued. "The
fishermen around here are certainly rather a casual class. Do you know
that there is scarcely one of them who can swim? There isn't one of them
who isn't too lazy to learn even the simplest stroke. My brother used to
say--dear Gerald--that it served them right if they were drowned. I have
never been able to feel like that, Mr. Hamel. Life is such a wonderful
thing. One night," he went on, dropping his voice and leaning a little
forward in his carriage--"it was just before, or was it just after I
had fixed that light--I was down here one dark winter night. There was a
great north wind and a huge sea running. It was as black as pitch, but I
heard a boat making for St. David's causeway strike on those rocks
just hidden in front there. I heard those fishermen shriek as they went
under. I heard their shouts for help, I heard their death cries. Very
terrible, Mr. Hamel! Very terrible!"

Hamel looked at the speaker curiously. Mr. Fentolin seemed absorbed in
his subject. He had spoken with relish, as one who loves the things he
speaks about. Quite unaccountably, Hamel found himself shivering.

"It was their mother," Mr. Fentolin continued, leaning again a little
forward in his chair, "their mother whom I saw pass along the beach just
now--a widow, too, poor thing. She comes here often--a morbid taste. She
spoke to you, I think?"

"She spoke to me strangely," Hamel admitted. "She gave me the impression
of a woman whose brain had been turned with grief."

"Too true," Mr. Fentolin sighed. "The poor creature! I offered her a
small pension, but she would have none of it. A superior woman in her
way once, filled now with queer fancies," he went on, eyeing Hamel
steadily,--"the very strangest fancies. She spends her life prowling
about here. No one in the village even knows how she lives. Did she
speak of me, by-the-by?"

"She spoke of you as being a very kind-hearted man."

Mr. Fentolin sighed.

"The poor creature! Well, well, let us revert to the object of your
coming here. Do you really wish to occupy this little shanty, Mr.
Hamel?"

"