re than once he stopped the car and,
standing up, looked steadily away seawards. The long stretch of
marshland, on which the golf links were situated, was empty. A slight,
drizzling rain was falling. He found, when he reached the Dormy
House, that nearly all the men were assembled in one of the large
sitting-rooms. A table of bridge had been made up. Mr. Collins was
seated in an easy-chair close to the window, reading a review. Granet
accepted a cup of tea and stood on the hearth-rug.

"How did the golf go this afternoon?" he inquired.

"I was dead off it," Anselman replied gloomily.

"Our friend in the easy-chair there knocked spots off us."

Mr. Collins looked up and grunted and looked out of the window again.

"Either of you fellows going to cut in at bridge?" young Anselman
continued.

Granet shook his head and walked to the window.

"I can't stick cards in the daytime."

Mr. Collins shut up his review.

"I agree with you, sir," he said. "I endeavoured to persuade one of
these gentlemen to play another nine holes--unsuccessfully, I regret to
state."

Granet lit a cigarette.

"Well," he remarked, "it's too far to get down to the links again but
I'll play you a game of bowls, if you like."

The other glanced out upon the lawn and rose to his feet.

"It is an excellent suggestion," he declared. "If you will give me five
minutes to fetch my mackintosh and galoshes, it would interest me to see
whether I have profited by the lessons I took in Scotland."

They met, a few moments later, in the garden. Mr. Collins threw the jack
with great precision and they played an end during which his superiority
was apparent. They strolled together across the lawn, well away now from
the house. For the first time Granet dropped his careless tone.

"What do you make of this change in the weather?" he asked quickly.

"It's just what they were waiting for," the other replied. "What about
this afternoon?"

"I am not scientist, worse luck," Granet replied impatiently, "but I
saw enough to convince me that they've got the right idea. Sir Meyville
thought I was the man commanding the escort they've given him,--actually
rowed me out to the workshop and showed me the whole thing. I tell you
I saw it just as you described it,--saw the bottom of the sea, even the
colour of the seaweed, the holes in the rocks."

"And they've got the shells, too," Collins muttered, "the shells that
burst under water."

Granet looked around. T