urier, a thick-set, vigorous-looking man, shorter than Peter, stood
still a moment, looking at him rather queerly out of his keen, grey
eyes.

"Been up to Jean's much of late?" he asked, trudging on again.

"No, not I," said Peter. "Hangin' round in the village isn't much after
my mind."

"Best send Louise instead, hey?"

Peter wheeled his huge frame round in a moment.

"What do you mean, man?" he demanded, in a voice that seemed to come
from his feet.

Mesurier's face was devoid of expression, as he replied, "Nothing, to be
sure. Of course Louise will be going to the shop now and again."

Peter laid his hand, like a lion's paw, on Mesurier's shoulder, as if he
would rend the truth out of him.

"And what's the matter with her going to the shop?" said Peter, so
rapidly and thickly as to be hardly articulate.

"None that I know of," said the other uneasily, shrugging off Peter's
hand, with an attempted laugh.

"Now you understand," said Peter, with blazing eyes, "you've either got
to swear that you've heard nothing at all about Louise which you
oughtn't to have heard, or else you'll tell me who said it, and let him
know he's got me to reckon with," and Peter clenched his fist in a way
that would have made most people swear whatever he might have happened
to wish.

"Well, mate," said the other man. "You go and see Jean, and ask him what
company he's had of late." Then seeing Peter's face becoming livid, he
added briefly, "There's been a queer-looking fish staying with him the
last three weeks--walks all on one side--and Louise was talking to him
t'other evening under the church wall. 'Twas my wife saw her. That's the
truth. Nobody else has said nought about her."

Peter swung round without a word, and marched off in the direction of
the village. Mesurier watched him a moment, then called after him, "I
say, mate! mind what you're doing: the man's a poor blighted creature,
more like a monkey than a Christian."

Peter said something in his throat while he handed the crabs to
Mesurier: his hand shook so violently as he did so that the basket
nearly fell to the ground. Then he strode on again. Mesurier had glanced
at his face, and did not follow.

It took Peter less than an hour, at the pace at which he was walking,
to reach the next village along the coast where Jean lived. The mellow
afternoon sunshine was lighting up the cottage wall, and the long strip
of gaily flowering garden, as he approached. He entere