"'Morning," said the gentleman, saluting with his crop. It was discomfiting to find the occupant of Mary's former home so completely ignorant of Mary. Such ignorance, there, on the very threshold, in view of the sun shutters that had framed her face, seemed rather callous of him. As Conrad watched him swagger up the lane, he resented the usurper's privilege to stretch his gaitered legs on the hearth to whose history he was so utterly indifferent. Somehow the drawing-room looked emptier still to Conrad for the colloquy, when he went indoors. In the violent disassociation of the next house from Mary Page, this one seemed suddenly foreign to him; suddenly he felt that he had committed a fatuous and a mournful act in taking it. Sweetbay had meant to him four persons, and of these, three had fled, and the fourth was lost. Why should he stay here? He thought vaguely of a little dinner at "Odd-and-even's," and a stall at the Alhambra. He nearly stretched his arm for the time-table--and all the while the melancholy that oppressed him urged him to remain and find Mary. His mind demanded her more insistently than before. It was no longer a whim: it was a strenuous desire. "After all, it would be a crazy thing, to go to London for pleasure!" he mused. "I'll hear what the agents have to say." He strolled to their office after luncheon, and a small boy told him that Mr. Stokes was in. For once Conrad chafed at the local languor. The torpid tradesmen, unconcerned whether he bought or not, had amused him, but the heavy young man who gazed at him with vacant eyes was irritating. "Dr. Page?" echoed the young man dully; "Rose Villa? There was a Dr. Page in Esselfield, wasn't there?" "I don't know," said Conrad. "Perhaps you can tell me. Where is Esselfield?" "That's along the Esselfield Road," said Mr. Stokes with deliberation. "What do you want to know for?" "I'm trying to learn the address of a friend who has moved," Conrad explained, labouredly polite. "Oh y-e-s." He paused so long that it seemed doubtful if he would speak again. "There was a Dr. Page in Esselfield; I can't say if he's there still." "The gentleman I mean was--well, he must be an elderly man," said Conrad. He could not remember in the least how Dr. Page had looked; he wished he knew his Christian name. "An elderly man. He had a family. They used to be at Rose Villa, next door to Mowbray Lodge. I'm talking of years ago--a good many years ago.... Perhaps your partner might be able to assist me?" "Major Bompas lives at Rose Villa now," said Mr. Stokes. His tone was a little firmer, the tone of one who says a helpful thing. "And he took it of people called 'Greames'; I know all that. Dr. Page had the house before the Greames." "Oh," murmured Mr. Stokes, "did he? Y-e-s.... No, I couldn't say, I'm sure. Mr. Greames lived there before Major Bompas. Mr. Greames was there a long while back."