moving water in the well he looked at him a moment through his
spectacles, and then said:

"Did you have any lunch?"

Paynter for the first time realized that he had, as a fact, worked and
thought furiously all day without food.

"Please don't fancy I mean you had too much lunch," said the medical
man, with mournful humor. "On the contrary, I mean you had too little.
I think you are a bit knocked out, and your nerves exaggerate things.
Anyhow, let me advise you not to do any more to-night. There's nothing
to be done without ropes or some sort of fishing tackle, if with that;
but I think I can get you some of the sort of grappling irons the
fishermen use for dragging. Poor Jake's got some, I know; I'll bring
them round to you tomorrow morning. The fact is, I'm staying there for
a bit as he's rather in a state, and I think is better for me to ask for
the things and not a stranger. I am sure you'll understand."

Paynter understood sufficiently to assent, and hardly knew why he stood
vacantly watching the doctor make his way down the steep road to the
shore and the fisher's cottage. Then he threw off thoughts he had not
examined, or even consciously entertained, and walked slowly and rather
heavily back to the Vane Arms.

The doctor, still funereal in manner, though no longer so in costume,
appeared punctually under the wooden sign next morning, laden with what
he had promised; an apparatus of hooks and a hanging net for hoisting
up anything sunk to a reasonable depth. He was about to proceed on his
professional round, and said nothing further to deter the American from
proceeding on his own very unprofessional experiment as a detective.
That buoyant amateur had indeed recovered most, if not all, of
yesterday's buoyancy, was now well fitted to pass any medical
examination, and returned with all his own energy to the scene of
yesterday's labors.

It may well have brightened and made breezier his second day's toil that
he had not only the sunlight and the bird's singing in the little wood,
to say nothing of a more scientific apparatus to work with, but also
human companionship, and that of the most intelligent type. After
leaving the doctor and before leaving the village he had bethought
himself of seeking the little court or square where stood the quiet
brown house of Andrew Ashe, solicitor, and the operations of dragging
were worked in double harness. Two heads were peering over the well in
the wood: one yellow-hair