nd
sent a tremor of light through the dead grass; the horizon was
invisible, for mist concealed it; and from the low and ash-coloured
vapour the sea crept out with its monotonous, myriad wavelets
flecked here and there by a feather of foam.

As he descended Brendon saw a man at work in the garden setting up a
two-foot barrier of woven wire. It was evidently intended to keep
the rabbits from the cultivated flower beds which had been dug from
the green slope of the coomb.

He heard a singing voice and perceived that it was Doria, the motor
boatman. Fifty yards from him Mark stood still, and the gardener
abandoned his work and came forward. He was bare-headed and smoking
a thin, black, Tuscan cigar with the colours of Italy on a band
round the middle of it. Giuseppe recognized him and spoke first.

"It is Mr. Brendon, the sleuth! He has come with news for my
master?"

"No, Doria--no news, worse luck; but I was this way--down at
Plymouth again--and thought I'd look up Mrs. Pendean and her uncle.
Why d'you call me 'sleuth'?"

"I read story-books of crime in which the detectives are 'sleuths.'
It is American. Italians say 'sbirro,' England says 'police
officer.'"

"How is everybody?"

"Everybody very well. Time passes; tears dry; Providence watches."

"And you are still looking for the rich woman to restore the last of
the Dorias to his castle?"

Giuseppe laughed, then he shut his eyes and sucked his evil-smelling
cigar.

"We shall see as to that. Man proposes, God disposes. There is a god
called Cupid, Mr. Brendon, who overturns our plans as yonder
plough-share overturns the secret homes of beetle and worm."

Mark's pulses quickened. He guessed to what Doria possibly referred
and felt concern but no surprise. The other continued.

"Ambition may succumb before beauty. Ancestral castles may crumble
before the tide of love, as a child's sand building before the sea.
Too true!"

Doria sighed and looked at Brendon closely. The Italian stood in a
tight-fitting jersey of brown wool, a very picturesque figure
against his dark background. The other had nothing to say and
prepared to descend. He guessed what had happened and was concerned
rather with Jenny Pendean than the romantic personality before him.
But that the stranger could still be here, exiled in this lonely
spot, told him quite as much as the man's words. He was not chained
to "Crow's Nest" with his great ambitions in abeyance for nothing.
Mark, however