The information afforded by Mrs. Phillips, of whom the visitor had rented two second-floor rooms for an indefinite period, was limited and unsatisfactory. He was a New York man, she confided, and an architect; he had his meals sent to his rooms and ate three eggs every morning; he found Belle Harbour very picturesque and interesting, and wore pink and blue pajamas; he made strange drawings in books and did much writing; he smoked cigarettes or pipes all day long and dropped the ashes on the floor. King’s Street heard these facts with avidity and reiterated “_Why?_” And Mrs. Phillips only shook her head and murmured in tones of finality,-- “Well, you must remember he’s a No’therner!” [Illustration] Burton’s conduct on the afternoon of the day which had given him his first glimpse of the girl in the rose-garden did nothing to dispel the growing conviction that there was something strange and mysterious about his presence in Belle Harbour. Armed with a sketch-book, he wandered aimlessly the length of King’s Street, smoked four cigarettes in the shade of the church-yard chestnuts, and subsequently wandered aimlessly home again without once having set pencil to paper or, apparently, having seen aught but the end of his well-made nose. King’s Street whispered behind its sun-repelling jalousies. And yet Mrs. Phillips’s information, as far as it went, was quite correct, and the mystery was apparent rather than real. [Illustration] Stephen Burton was an architect. A commission for a costly church edifice for a wealthy congregation in a New Jersey residential village had sent him South in search of details of pure Colonial architecture. He had found more to interest him in Belle Harbour than he had anticipated or than its citizens knew of. The old church was a veritable mine of valuable material, and certain old doorways and gables and porches scattered through the town and over the adjacent country were far too interesting to allow of neglect. Being a man of comfortable means, Burton’s profession was a passion rather than a trade; he could and did afford to accept only those commissions that appealed to him, but having once taken them he put his very best into each, with the result that he was already known, at thirty-eight years of age, as the foremost man in the line of his selection--church and public edifices. He had already spent a week in Belle Harbour; there was no hurry; if he liked, there was another week at his disposal. With an office force that could be entirely depended upon there was no good reason for returning North until it suited his pleasure. This afternoon New York seemed utterly repellent to him; a hot, noisy, dusty city in which were no rose-gardens and no girls in white gowns gathered at the waist with lavender ribbons. Deuce take New York! [Illustration]