He broke off. "Places do the same, I think," he said. "If you have the sort of things in you that stir them they produce in their turn _their_ things . . . and always will for your kind . . . a sort of secret society; I believe," he added, suddenly turning on Harkness and looking him in the face, "that Treliss might give you something of the same adventure that it gave me--if you want it to, that is--if you need it. Do you _want_ adventure, romance, something that will pull you right out of yourself and test you, show you whether you _are_ real or no, give you a crisis that will change you for ever? Do you want it?" Then he added quietly, reflectively. "It changed _me_ more than the war ever did." "Do I _want_ it?" Harkness was breathing deeply, driven by some excitement that he could not stop to analyse. "I should say so. I want nothing so much. It's just what I need, what I've been looking for----" "Then go down there. I believe you're just the kind--but go at the right time. There's a night in August when they have a dance, when they dance all round the town. That's the time for you to go. That will liberate you if you throw yourself into it. It's in August. August the---- I'm not quite sure of the date. I'll write to you if you'll give me your address." Soon afterwards, with a warm clasp of the hand, they parted. [Footnote 1: See _Maradick at Forty._] VI Two days later Harkness received a small parcel. Opening it he discovered an old brown-covered book and a letter. The letter was as follows: DEAR Mr. HARKNESS--In all probability in the cold light of reason, and removed from the fumes of the Reform Club, our conversation of yesterday will seem to you nothing but foolishness. Perhaps it was. The merest chance led me to think of something that belongs, for me, to a life quite dead and gone; not perhaps as dead, though, as I had fancied it. In any case, I had not, until yesterday, thought directly of Treliss for years. Let us put it on the simplest ground. If you want a beautiful place, near at hand, for a holiday, that you have not yet seen, here it is--Treliss, North Cornwall--take the morning train from Paddington and change at Trewth. If you will be advised by me you really should go down for August 6th, when they have their dance. I could see that you are interested in local customs, and here is a most entertaining one surviving from Druid times, I believe. Go down on the day itself and let that be your first impression of the place. The train gets you in between five and six. Take your room at the "Man-at-Arms" Hotel, ten years ago the most picturesque inn in Great Britain. I cannot, of course, vouch for what it may have become. I should get out at Trewth, which you will reach soon after four, and walk the three miles to the town. Well worth doing.