doscopic
grouping and re-grouping of men and children and women. The revolutions
of his life, a subject which in the press of other and urgent matters
had fallen of late into the background of his thoughts, struck him again
as wondrous and admirable. He began to laugh with enjoyment. He looked
at Fairbairn. How dull in comparison the regular sequences of his
career!

"I wandered about here barefoot and penniless," he said, "not so very
long ago. On this very pavement!" He struck it with his foot, commending
to Fairbairn the amazing fact. "I have cleaned boots," and he called to
a boy who was lying in wait with a boot-black's apparatus on his back
for any dusty foot. "Chico, come and clean my shoes." He jested with the
boy with the kindliness of a Spaniard, and gave him a shining peseta.
Hillyard was revelling in the romance of his life under the spur of the
excitement which the affair of the letter had fired in him. "Yes, I
wandered here, passing up and down in front of this very Casino."

And Fairbairn saw his face change and his eyes widen as though he
recognised some one in the throng beneath the trees.

"What is it?" Fairbairn asked, and for a little while Hillyard did not
answer. His eyes were not following any movements under the trees. They
saw no one present in Alicante that day. Slowly he turned to Fairbairn,
and answered in voice of suspense:

"Nothing! I was just remembering--and wondering!"

He remained sunk in abstraction for a long time. "It can't be!" at grips
with "If it could be!" and a rising inspiration that "It was!" A man had
once tried him out with questions about Alicante, a man who was afraid
lest he should have seen too much. But Hillyard had learnt to hold his
tongue when he had only inspirations to go upon, and he disclosed
nothing of this to Fairbairn.

Later on, when darkness had fallen, the two men drove in a motor-car
southwards round the bay and through a shallow valley to the fishing
village of Torrevieja. When you came upon its broad beach of shingle and
sand, with its black-tarred boats hauled up, and its market booths, you
might dream that you had been transported to Broadstairs--except for one
fact. The houses are built in a single story, since the village is
afflicted with earthquakes. Two houses rise higher than the rest, the
hotel and the Casino. In the Casino Hillyard found Jose Medina's agent
for those parts sitting over his great mug of beer; and they talked
together qui