not return. He imagined a colloquy.
But the Skipper's madness would preserve the secret which he no longer
knew, and, therefore, could not reveal. He made the bells call Jack
Pringle. He would never point to the defaced grave and say, "Jack
Pringle lies beneath this stone." And yet sanity might, perhaps, return,
a rush of knowledge of the past and recognition of its tragedy.

Uniacke took his hat and went to the door. He stood out on the step.
Sea-birds were crying. The sound of the sea withdrew moment by moment,
as if it were stealing furtively away. Behind, in the rectory passage,
the servant clattered as she brought in the supper.

"Sir Graham!" Uniacke called suddenly. "Sir Graham!"

"Yes."

The voice came from somewhere in the shadow of the church.

"Will you not come in? Supper is ready."

In a moment the painter came out of the gloom.

"That churchyard draws me," he said, mounting the step.

"You saw the Skipper?"

"Yes, leaving."

"Did he speak to you?"

"Not a word."

The clergyman breathed a sigh of relief.

In the evening Uniacke turned his pipe two or three times in his fingers
and said, looking down:

"That picture of yours--"

"Yes. What of it?"

"You will paint it in London, I suppose?"

"How can I do that? The imagination of it came to me here, is sustained
and quickened by these surroundings."

"You mean to paint it here?" the clergyman faltered.

Sir Graham was evidently struck by his host's air of painful
discomfiture.

"I beg your pardon," he said hastily. "Of course I do not mean to
inflict myself upon your kind hospitality while I am working. I shall
return to the inn."

Uniacke flushed red at being so misunderstood.

"I cannot let you do that. No, no! Honestly, my question was only
prompted by--by--a thought--"

"Yes?"

"Do not think me impertinent. But, really, a regard for you has grown up
in me since you have allowed me to know you--a great regard indeed."

"Thank you, thank you, Uniacke," said the painter, obviously moved.

"And it has struck me that in your present condition of health, and
seeing that your mind is pursued by these--these melancholy sea thoughts
and imaginings, it might be safer, better for you to be in a place less
desolate, less preyed upon by the sea. That is all. Believe me, that is
all."

He spoke the last words with the peculiar insistence and almost
declamatory fervour of the liar. But he was now embarked upon deceit and
must crowd