"That's what I like," he said, with a chuckle of anticipation. "Lot's o' people. I've knocked about too long in the thick o' things, you see, Miss Sylvia, kept it up--I have--seen it right through every night till three o'clock in the morning, for months at a time. Oh, that's the real thing!" he broke off. "It makes you feel good." Sylvia laughed. "Then if you dislike the country," she said, and perhaps rather eagerly, "why did you come to stay with us at all?" And suddenly Hine leered at her. "Oh, you know!" he said, and almost he nudged her with his elbow. "I wouldn't have come, of course, if old Garratt hadn't particularly told me that you were agreeable." Sylvia grew hot with shame. She drew away, flicked the horse with her whip and drove on. Had she been used, she wondered, to lure this poor helpless youth to the sequestered village where they stayed?--and a chill struck through her even on that day of July. The plot had been carefully laid if that were so; she was to be hoodwinked no less than Wallie Hine. What sinister thing was then intended? She tried to shake off the dread which encompassed her, pleading to herself that she saw perils in shadows like the merest child. But she had not yet shaken it off when Walter Hine cried out excitedly to her to stop. "Look!" he said, and he pointed toward an hotel upon the sea-front which at that moment they were passing. Sylvia looked, and saw obsequiously smirking upon the steps of the hotel, with his hat lifted from his shiny head, her old enemy, Captain Barstow. Fortunately she had not stopped. She drove quickly on, just acknowledging his salute. It needed but this meeting to confirm her fears. It was not coincidence which had brought Captain Barstow on their heels to Weymouth. He had come with knowledge and a definite purpose. "Oh, I say," protested Wallie Hine, "you might have stopped, Miss Sylvia, and let me pass the time of day with old Barstow." Sylvia stopped the trap at once. "I am sorry," she said. "You will find your own way home. We lunch at half past one." Hine looked doubtfully at her and then back toward the hotel. "I didn't mean that I wanted to leave you, Miss Sylvia," he said. "Not by a long chalk." "But you must leave me, Mr. Hine," she said, looking at him with serious eyes, "if you want to pass the time of day with your 'red-hot' friend." There was no hint of a smile about her lips. She waited for his answer. It came accompanied with a smile which aimed at gallantry and was merely familiar. "Of course I stay where I am. What do _you_ think?" Sylvia hurried over her shopping and drove homeward. She went at once to her father, who lay in the hammock in the shade of the trees, reading a book. She came up from behind him across the grass, and he was not aware of her approach until she spoke. "Father!" she said, and he started up.