to be about to make for the House. Dickson caught
him by the arm and dragged him into the bushes, and he followed
unresistingly, like a man in a dream. They ploughed through the
thicket, recrossed the grass avenue, and scrambled down the hillside to
the banks of the stream.

Then for the first time Dickson observed that his companion's face was
very white, and that sweat stood on his temples. Heritage lay down and
lapped up water like a dog. Then he turned a wild eye on the other.

"I am going back," he said. "That is the voice of the girl I saw in
Rome, and it is singing her song!"

CHAPTER IV

DOUGAL

"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Dickson. "You're coming home to
your supper. It was to be on the chap of nine."

"I'm going back to that place."

The man was clearly demented and must be humoured. "Well, you must
wait till the morn's morning. It's very near dark now, and those are
two ugly customers wandering about yonder. You'd better sleep the
night on it."

Mr. Heritage seemed to be persuaded. He suffered himself to be led up
the now dusky slopes to the gate where the road from the village ended.
He walked listlessly like a man engaged in painful reflection. Once
only he broke the silence.

"You heard the singing?" he asked.

Dickson was a very poor hand at a lie. "I heard something," he
admitted.

"You heard a girl's voice singing?"

"It sounded like that," was the admission. "But I'm thinking it might
have been a seagull."

"You're a fool," said the Poet rudely.

The return was a melancholy business, compared to the bright speed of
the outward journey. Dickson's mind was a chaos of feelings, all of
them unpleasant. He had run up against something which he violently,
blindly detested, and the trouble was that he could not tell why. It
was all perfectly absurd, for why on earth should an ugly house, some
overgrown trees, and a couple of ill-favoured servants so malignly
affect him? Yet this was the fact; he had strayed out of Arcady into a
sphere that filled him with revolt and a nameless fear. Never in his
experience had he felt like this, this foolish childish panic which
took all the colour and zest out of life. He tried to laugh at himself
but failed. Heritage, stumbling along by his side, effectually crushed
his effort to discover humour in the situation. Some exhalation from
that infernal place had driven the Poet mad. And then that voice
singing! A seagul