Harkness was alone again--not a sound anywhere. The town shimmered below him in the heat. He waited, absorbed by the picture spread in front of him, then apprehensive again and conscious that he was alone. The alarm that he had originally felt at sight of the town had not left him. Suppose the boy did not return? Was he playing some joke on him perhaps? No, whatever else it was, it was not that. The boy had been deeply serious, plunged into some crisis that was of tremendous importance to him. Harkness decided that he would wait until the shadow of a solitary tree to his right reached him and then go. The shadow crept slowly to his feet. At the same moment a figure turned the bend, a man with a black beard. He was walking quickly up the hill as though he knew that he was late. Harkness went forward to meet him. The man stopped as though surprised. "I beg your pardon," said Harkness; "were you expecting to meet some one here?" "I was--yes," said the man. "He will be back in a moment. He was afraid that you might come up the other way. He went over the hill to see." "Aye," said the man, standing, his legs apart, quite unconcerned. He was a handsome fellow, broad-shouldered, wearing dark blue trousers and a knitted jersey. "You'll be a friend of Mr. Dunbar's maybe?" "No, I'm not," Harkness explained. "I was passing and he asked me to wait for a moment and catch you if you came while he was away." "Aye," said the fisherman, taking out a large wedge of tobacco and filling his pipe, "I'm a bit later than I said I'd be. Wife kept me." "Fine evening," said Harkness. "Aye," said the man. At that moment the boy came over the hill and joined them. "Very good of you, sir," he said. "You're late, Jabez!" "Good night," said Harkness, and moved down the hill. He could see the two in urgent conversation as he moved forward. The incident occupied his mind. Why had the matter seemed of such importance to the boy? Why a meeting so elaborately appointed out there on the hillside? The fisherman too had seemed surprised that he, a stranger, should be concerned in the matter. Had he been in America the affair would have been at once explained--boot-legging of course. But here in England. . . . X When he reached the bottom of the hill he found that he was in the environs of the town. He was walking now along a road shaded by thick trees and close to the seashore. The cottages, white-washed, crooked and, many of them, thatched, ran down to the road, their gardens like little coloured carpets spreading in front of them. The evening air was thick with the scent of flowers, above all of roses. He had never smelt such roses, no, not in California. There was a breeze from the sea, and it seemed to blow the roses into his very heart, so that they seemed to be all about him, dark crimson, burning white, scattering their petals over his head. He could hear the tune of the sea upon the sand beyond the trees.