"Oh, yes. I was going to say when I side-tracked myself: what got me up was Lyttleton. He has the room next mine, you know. I'd just turned out my bedside light--been reading, you understand--when I heard his door open very gently and somebody go pussy-footing down the hall. And for some reason that kept me awake--because it was none of my business, I guess--waiting for him to come back and wondering what in thunder took him out on the prowl like that. And when I had wondered myself wide awake I got up and dressed--thought I'd take a walk, too, since the night was so fine. I honestly had no idea of following him--that was all an accident, my butting in the way I did." Sudden perception of a footing upon ground properly taboo even to angels caused the man to flush brick-red. His eyes sought Sally's in honest consternation. "Hope you don't mind," he mumbled. "Please go on," she said, conscious of the heat in her own cheeks, and holding him in an esteem proportionately more poisonous. "Well. About this morning: As I say, I went down to the beach for a dip. You know how that beach is--about a twelve-foot breadth of sand from the bottom of the cliff when the tide's high, with about twenty feet more when it's low. So foot-prints show until the weather rubs them out--takes a tolerable storm, as a rule. Below high-water mark it's different; the sand is covered up and smoothed out twice a day. Well, then, just below high-water mark--that is, about five feet below it, or at quarter-tide mark--I noticed the print of a rowboat's bows on the sand. It had landed there and waited a while--drawn up only part way out of the water--about three o'clock this morning. Two men had got out; one waited with the boat, the other went up toward the foot of the steps and mixed his footprints up with all the others. I don't know what for and can't imagine; but that's what happened, and presently he turned round and went back to the boat, and the two of them shoved her off again--trusting, I guess, to the tide to cover up the signs of their landing. "Why they should want to be secret about it, God only knows; but if they didn't, why three o'clock? It's all private beach along here, and whereas I believe there are no property rights below high-water mark, and anybody has a right to land anywhere in an emergency--where was the emergency? There was no gale last night, and if there had been, you'd think distressed mariners would have sense enough to come ashore farther along, toward the village, where they could find shelter--and all that. The more I think about it, the funnier it looks to me." He finished his breakfast and his statement at the same time, pushed back his chair, and produced a cigarette-case. "You don't mind? Thanks. Now what do you think?" Sally shook her head and looked blank. "Three o'clock? How can you be so sure about that?" she inquired obliquely.