or them and competition was too
keen. But Harry noticed that they did not yet seem to have heard of
the proposed destruction of the Cove. Then he got up to go. They
asked him to come again, and he promised that he would. Bethel rose
too.

"If you don't object, Mr. Trojan," he said, "I'll make one with you. I
had only looked in for a moment and had never intended to stay. I was
on my way back to the town."

They went out into the street together, and Harry shivered for a moment
as the wind from the sea met them.

"Ah, that's good," Bethel said; "your fires are well enough, but that
wind is worth a bag of gold."

They walked for a little in silence, and then Harry said: "Those are a
fine lot of men. They know what life really is."

Bethel laughed. "I know what you feel about them. You are glad that
there's no change. Twenty years has made little difference there. It
is twenty years, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Harry. "One thinks that it is nothing until one comes
back, and then one thinks that it's more than it really is."

"Yes, you're disappointed," Bethel said. "I know. Pendragon has
become popular, and to your mind that has destroyed its beauty--or, at
any rate, some of it."

"Well, I hate it," Harry said fiercely, "all this noise and show. Why
couldn't they have left Pendragon alone? I don't hate it for big
places that are, as it were, in the line of march. I suppose that they
must move with the day. That is inevitable. But Pendragon! Why--when
I was a boy, it was simply a little town by the sea. No one thought
about it or worried about it: it was a place wonderfully quiet and
simple. It was too quiet for me then; I should worship it now. But I
have come back and it has no room for me."

"I haven't known it as long as you," Bethel answered, "but I confess
that the very charm of it lies in its contrast. It is invasion, if you
like, but for that very reason exciting--two forces at work and a
battle in progress."

"With no doubt as to the ultimate victory," said Harry gloomily. "Yes,
I see what you mean by the contrast. But I cannot stand there and see
them dispassionately--you see I am bound up with so much of it. Those
men to-night were my friends when I was a boy. Newsome is the best man
that I have ever known, and there is the place; I love every stone of
it, and they would pull it down."

They had left the Cove and were pressing up a steep path to the moor.
The moon was strugg