Five minutes later he had got rid of them, and stood in meditation. Was it worth while trying for Dafydd Dafis again? Or taking another stroll along the Pier? Perhaps it wasn't. He was rather tired, and this seemed a stupid kind of thing he had been doing for the last few days. He'd potter about with June for another day--perhaps he had rather neglected Minetta lately--and then for the fishing up Delyn. In that way he would be off just as the Wakes people arrived. Already the lodging-house keepers were getting ready for them, putting away their ornaments and so on. They would be here on Friday night; to-day was Wednesday; John Willie would be off on Friday morning. This time he kept to his decision. He walked about with the pretty and untroublesome June all the next morning, and in the afternoon Minetta joined them. She approved warmly of his fishing-plan, and said she was sure the change would do him good. He told them to keep away from the crowds and not to be out too late, and then, on the Friday morning set off. When, at nine o'clock the same night, he walked up the path again and appeared in the dining-room just as June and Minetta were thinking of going to bed, Minetta stared. She had thought him miles away. She stared still harder when he mumbled that he had "forgotten something," and intended to be off again in the morning. III DELYN He had not at first seen that black dress. Sharpe's old cottage was never locked, and he had walked straight in, had put down his little dressing-bag, and had begun to empty his pockets, setting his flask, his fly-book, his store of tobacco and certain provisions on the little deal table under the single window. At a first glance there was nothing to show that the place had been entered since he had last been there. The mattress of Sharpe's narrow pallet had been rolled up at the bed-head and a patchwork quilt spread over it; the two windsor chairs stood in their accustomed places; and the rods in their brown canvas covers stood as usual in the corner. Only Sharpe's photographs had gone from the walls, leaving the little black heads of nails and tacks, each over its slightly paler oblong of plain deal boarding.