all was
illuminated. The rest of the place was wrapped now in darkness. He
walked up to the boat-house. The door was still locked. There was no
sign that any one had been there. Reluctantly at last he re-entered the
Tower and made his way up-stairs.

"Confound that fellow Kinsley!" he muttered, as he threw off his
overcoat. "All his silly suggestions and melodramatic ideas have given
me a fit of nerves. I am going to bed, and I am going to sleep. That
couldn't have been a light I saw at all. I couldn't have heard anything.
I am going to sleep."

CHAPTER XXVII

Hamel awoke to find his room filled with sunshine and a soft wind
blowing in through the open window. There was a pleasant odour of coffee
floating up from the kitchen. He looked at his watch--it was past eight
o'clock. The sea was glittering and bespangled with sunlight. He
found among his scanty belongings a bathing suit, and, wrapped in his
overcoat, hurried down-stairs.

"Breakfast in half an hour, Mrs. Cox," he called out.

She stood at the door, watching him as he stepped across the pebbles and
plunged in. For a few moments he swam. Then he turned over on his back.
The sunlight was gleaming from every window of St. David's Hall. He even
fancied that upon the terrace he could see a white-clad figure looking
towards him. He turned over and swam once more. From her place in the
doorway Mrs. Cox called out to him.

"Mind the Dagger Rocks, sir!"

He waved his hand. The splendid exhilaration of the salt water seemed to
give him unlimited courage. He dived, but the woman's cry of fear soon
recalled him. Presently he swam to shore and hurried up the beach. Mrs.
Cox, with a sigh of relief, disappeared into the kitchen.

"Those rocks on your nerves again, Mrs. Cox?" he asked, good-humouredly,
as he took his place at the breakfast table a quarter of an hour later.

"It's only us who live here, sir," she answered, "who know how terrible
they are. There's one--it comes up like my hand--a long spike. A boat
once struck upon that, and it's as though it'd been sawn through the
middle."

"I must have a look at them some day," he declared. "I am going to work
this morning, Mrs. Cox. Lunch at one o'clock."

He took rugs and established himself with a pile of books at the back
of a grassy knoll, sheltered from the wind, with the sea almost at his
feet. He sharpened his pencil and numbered the page of his notebook.
Then he looked up towards the Hall garden an