Whether I should write my own name in the hotel book or not was a question. I was undecided about it up to the last moment. I reflected that it was quite possible that a smart detective might take the trouble to find out all about the only visitor to the hotel if anything should occur. As a matter of fact, there were three other visitors in the hotel, a mother and two daughters, who as a rule kept to their rooms, only emerging to go for walks or drives. Gascoyne and his companion did not come by the train they had settled on, and I began to wonder whether after all they had changed their minds and gone somewhere else, or whether circumstances had prevented their coming at all. I was far too cautious to ask or seek information even in the most round-about way. I studied the time table in the privacy of my own room. There was another train which would bring them down about five o’clock. I established myself in the vestibule with some afternoon tea in front of me, and a little after five they drove up looking deliciously happy. I grew quite sentimental over them, and was compelled to take a long walk to cure myself. I had, before I left town, decided that aconite would be the best thing I could use if I chose to run the risk of a poison which left evidences. Aconite essentially knows its own mind, and the struggle is not a long one. After tea I went for a long tramp, and on my way back met them walking along the edge of the cliff. They were entirely engrossed in each other and barely noticed me as I passed, although there was not another soul in sight. The day had been perfect, but a gale sprang up as soon as the sun went down, and the rioting wind shook the little hotel as if it had been matchwood. There were six of us in the hotel dining-room at dinner, and with true British aloofness we had placed ourselves as far apart as possible. The lady and her two daughters dined in silence, as if it were a solemnity too deep for words. I sat alone and surveyed the reflection of young Gascoyne and Kate Falconer in the mirror in front of me. A bottle of champagne decorated their table, and between the courses they gazed into each other’s eyes in an ecstasy of happiness. After dinner the widow and her two daughters disappeared. Young Gascoyne smoked a cigar and took coffee and liqueurs in the vestibule with his chair pushed close to Kate Falconer. By half-past ten everybody in the hotel had gone to bed, and I lay smoking innumerable cigarettes and thinking deeply, while the storm howled and raved without. In the morning when I awoke there lay before me a panorama of foam-crowned waves, driving furiously to the shore or tossing tumultuously and flinging their spray into the air. It was Sunday, and despite the terrific wind the widow and her daughters went off to church, disappearing up the winding path of the cliff with superhuman struggles against the wind. I was late, and watched them from my bedroom window.