ways across the track there. It's
kind of a blue boat. You just sight the two reefs and the bell buoy
and when you're just opposite of the buoy, turn about and make for the
shore. There's a white pole where you land."

"Have you been sitting up--" I began, but he cut me short impatiently.

"No, I have insomnia--it's something dreadful the way I have it," he
explained. "I'm always sitting up."

I accepted the oars mechanically.

"And where is Mr. Bradley stopping?" I asked.

"Why, over to Miss Prynne's. He met the afternoon train yest'day and
the deaf an' dumb feller rowed over to-day, and when you didn't turn
up he left the oars. I tell you, he knows more'n you might think, to
look at him."

"Was--is Mr. Bradley well?" I asked.

"He looked to be well enough yest'day," said the insomniac
indifferently, "big feller, ain't he?"

I shouldered the oars, and followed by my sensible parson with the
bag, made for the untidy wharf through the silent village. The blue
boat was not hard to discover in the pale, ghostly light; the bay was
hardly rippled; it was to be another hot, sticky day. My companion
begged the privilege of the oars.

"My old game, you know," he added apologetically, and swept us out on
the black, mysterious water with beautiful, clean strokes. He had soon
marked down the buoy and was regretting that it would be only a matter
of twenty minutes before we must land.

"Do you know," he added with a boyish sort of smile, "all this is a
real adventure to me, Jerrolds, and I can't help enjoying it. It can't
be serious, you see--Roger's well. Perhaps"--and he shot a curious
glance at me--"perhaps he's going to be married!"

I laughed a little stiffly. It was difficult to explain to this
sensible parson that Bradleys did not marry in this fashion; it wasn't
quite complimentary to him. Moreover I didn't know whether he would be
sensible enough to understand what two or three of Roger's friends
knew very well--that he was unlikely to marry so long as Sue Paynter
remained above ground. It had been simple enough, that affair: Sue and
Roger had been engaged ten years before the time of which I am
writing, they were within a few months of the wedding, and Frederick
Paynter, her cousin, had come back from Germany, playing Chopin like a
demi-god, and had whirled her off her feet in a fortnight. She broke
off the engagement in a rather cruel way, it seemed to me--by
telephone--and Roger hung up the receiver (I my