from
a railway as this. If," he added with a pleasant deliberation which
was the real courtesy of his conventionally worded speech, "you ever
happened at any time to be anywhere near Audrey Edge, and would look me
up, I should be glad to show it to you and your friends." An hour later,
when he left them at a railway station where their paths diverged, Miss
Elsie recovered a fluency that she had lately checked. "Well, I like
that! He never told us his name, or offered a card. I wonder if they
call that an invitation over here. Does he suppose anybody's going to
look up his old Audrey Edge--perhaps it's named after his wife--to find
out who HE is? He might have been civil enough to have left his name, if
he--meant anything."

"But I assure you he was perfectly sincere, and meant an invitation,"
returned the consul smilingly. "Audrey Edge is evidently a well-known
place, and he a man of some position. That is why he didn't specify
either."

"Well, you won't catch me going there," said Miss Elsie.

"You would be quite right in either going or staying away," said the
consul simply.

Miss Elsie tossed her head slightly. Nevertheless, before they left the
station, she informed him that she had been told that the station-master
had addressed the stranger as "my lord," and that another passenger had
said he was "Lord Duncaster."

"And that proves"--

"That I'm right," said the young lady decisively, "and that his
invitation was a mere form."

It was after sundown when they reached the picturesque and
well-appointed hotel that lifted itself above the little fishing-village
which fronted Kelpie Island. The hotel was in as strong contrast to the
narrow, curving street of dull, comfortless-looking stone cottages below
it, as were the smart tourists who had just landed from the steamer to
the hard-visaged, roughly clad villagers who watched them with a certain
mingling of critical independence and superior self-righteousness.
As the new arrivals walked down the main street, half beach, half
thoroughfare, their baggage following them in low trolleys drawn by
porters at their heels, like a decorous funeral, the joyless faces of
the lookers-on added to the resemblance. Beyond them, in the prolonged
northern twilight, the waters of the bay took on a peculiar pewtery
brightness, but with the usual mourning-edged border of Scotch seacoast
scenery. Low banks of cloud lay on the chill sea; the outlines of Kelpie
Island were hidden.