worth while to go back. But as I had kept on my
rooms in the farmhouse I concluded to go down again for a few days.

It was late, deep dusk, when I got out at our little country station.
My eyes fell on the unmistakable broad back and the muscular legs in
cycling stockings of little Fyne. He passed along the carriages rapidly
towards the rear of the train, which presently pulled out and left him
solitary at the end of the rustic platform. When he came back to where
I waited I perceived that he was much perturbed, so perturbed as to
forget the convention of the usual greetings. He only exclaimed Oh! on
recognising me, and stopped irresolute. When I asked him if he had been
expecting somebody by that train he didn't seem to know. He stammered
disconnectedly. I looked hard at him. To all appearances he was
perfectly sober; moreover to suspect Fyne of a lapse from the
proprieties high or low, great or small, was absurd. He was also a too
serious and deliberate person to go mad suddenly. But as he seemed to
have forgotten that he had a tongue in his head I concluded I would
leave him to his mystery. To my surprise he followed me out of the
station and kept by my side, though I did not encourage him. I did not
however repulse his attempts at conversation. He was no longer
expecting me, he said. He had given me up. The weather had been
uniformly fine--and so on. I gathered also that the son of the poet had
curtailed his stay somewhat and gone back to his ship the day before.

That information touched me but little. Believing in heredity in
moderation I knew well how sea-life fashions a man outwardly and stamps
his soul with the mark of a certain prosaic fitness--because a sailor is
not an adventurer. I expressed no regret at missing Captain Anthony and
we proceeded in silence till, on approaching the holiday cottage, Fyne
suddenly and unexpectedly broke it by the hurried declaration that he
would go on with me a little farther.

"Go with you to your door," he mumbled and started forward to the little
gate where the shadowy figure of Mrs Fyne hovered, clearly on the
lookout for him. She was alone. The children must have been already in
bed and I saw no attending girl-friend shadow near her vague but
unmistakable form, half-lost in the obscurity of the little garden.

I heard Fyne exclaim "Nothing" and then Mrs Fyne's well-trained,
responsible voice uttered the words, "It's what I have said," with
incisive