Egbert had come back, had come back to Bayport to live, for good. He had come on the morning train. Lots of folks saw him; some of them had talked with him. "And what do you cal'late, Cap'n Sears? You'll never guess in _this_ world! By the crawlin' prophets, he swears he ain't rich, the way all hands figured out he was. No, sir, he ain't! 'Cordin' to his tell he ain't got no money at all, scarcely. All them stocks and--and bonds and--and securitums and such like have gone on the rocks. They was unfort'nate infestments, he says. He says he's in straightened out circumstances, whatever they be, but he's come back here to spend his declinin' days--that's what Joe Macomber says he called 'em, his declinin' days--in Bayport, 'cause he loves the old place, 'count of Lobelia, his wife, lovin' it so, and he can maybe scratch along here on what income he's got, and--and----" And so on, for sentence after sentence. Sears heard some of it, but not all. The letter he had just read--the letter from Judge Knowles which Bradley had handed him before he left Orham--was of itself too startling and disturbing to be dismissed from his thoughts; but he heard some, enough to make him realize that there might be, in all probability was, trouble ahead. Just why Phillips had returned to Bayport, to take up his abode there permanently, was hard to understand, but there certainly must be some reason beside his "love" for the place and its people. Neither place nor people should, so it seemed to the captain, appeal strongly to a citizen of the world, of the fashionable world, like Mr. Egbert Phillips. It is true that he might perhaps live cheaper there than in most communities, but still.... No, Sears was sure that the former singing teacher had returned to the Cape in pursuance of a plan. What that plan might be he could not guess, unless the widower contemplated contesting his wife's gift to the Fair Harbor. That would be a losing fight, was certain to be, for Judge Knowles had seen to that. But if not that--what? He gave very little thought to the matter at the time, for Judge Knowles' letter and its astounding proposition were monopolizing his mental machinery. That letter would have, as he might have expressed it, knocked him on his beam ends even if the Foam Flake's unexpected outbreak had not knocked him there already. The letter was rather long, but it was to the point, nevertheless. Judge Knowles begged him--him, Sears Kendrick--to accept the appointment of trustee in charge of Elizabeth Berry's twenty thousand dollar inheritance. The latter was hers in trust until she was thirty.