Lieutenant Reginald Beauchamp, at present commanding a "destroyer" stationed at Plymouth, but spending his leave with his mother, was prone to merriment at all times and seasons. There was a dryness in the elder gentleman's tone which caused him to chuckle. "You were never keen on Travers Nugent, I know," he said. "But you have not answered my question about Chermside with your customary enlightenment, Mr. Mallory. I asked who and what he is. My mother tells me that he has been making strong running with a pretty girl--Miss Maynard, I think, the name was--whose people have taken the Manor House for the summer. You see, I only turned up last night for a short respite from my little tin ship, so I'm all agog for the local gossip." At that moment the subject of their discussion and the man who had called for him disappeared from view, having rounded the corner of the slight eminence. The pair had struck into the footpath which would lead them along the marsh under the nearer bank of the vanished estuary. Mr. Mallory turned away from the window with an enigmatic smile for his young naval friend. "I cannot tell you what Mr. Chermside is," he said when he had produced his cigar-case and selected a weed. "But the official Army lists--not the ones that are quite up to date, mind you--record what he was. There seems to be an unexplained gulf between the termination of his military career and his presence in our midst. A hiatus, so to speak, of nearly two years since he was an officer in the 24th Lancers undoubtedly exists. His own account of himself is that he has recently come into money, and that he is playing about here while awaiting the arrival of a steam yacht on which he means to take an extended cruise. Beyond that, both my opinion and my scanty information coincide with yours. He strikes one as unobjectionable but reserved, and he has certainly been dangling after the daughter of old Maynard, who has rented the Manor House furnished for the season." "What is Maynard?" demanded Reggie Beauchamp with persistent interest. "A millionaire maker of screws in Birmingham." "Then it would be queer if there was a loose screw somewhere about his daughter's admirer," Reggie rejoined, and with a boyish laugh for his own jest he strolled off to the billiard-room in quest of a game. In the meanwhile Leslie Chermside and his companion had reached the seclusion of the marshland path, at the same time plunging into a more private conversation than was advisable on the frequented sea-front. On their immediate left rose the tree-covered side, almost a miniature cliff, of the ancient river-bed; to the right of them there stretched to the opposite bank a quarter of a mile away the osiers and reeds that carpeted the mud-flats. There was no one to see or hear.