A SEA fog had crept up after the sting of hot sunshine which followed the rain, and stifled it. When Ursula had walked a few paces from Grey Stone, the solid world was melted to clammy vapour. The siren at Polpinnock Head was emitting at regular intervals a sound comparable to that of a wolf in Northern Canada who, after four months’ winter starvation, smells faintly his first caribou, and then discovers he has a stiff leg. Ursula slipped along, huddling her mind against the wraiths of dreariness and fear. The invisible sea fell back from the rocks below with a sulky gurgle and suck. Nearing the village, she heard occasional steps around her, and once or twice a foolish laugh ... and all the while, like a forlorn child, she was repeating to herself, “I want to run away--oh, I _do_ want to run away,” till the very rhythm of the phrase soothed her. Parc Gooth seemed full of angry people. The Abbotts’ jingle stood outside; and within, the Abbotts were backing the claims of a melancholy veteran with a long beard and an American accent, against Tody, whose mysterious other Todys were rapidly multiplying in his speech. The Allingham-Joneses had penetrated to upstairs, and were critically investigating the bedrooms. And two telegrams addressed to Barrison, and signed Lacey, announced that Major Allingham-Jones was by signed agreement the next in succession at Parc Gooth, after June 24th. Bewildered by the sudden clamour and rivalry, on top of her silent walk from Grey Stone, Ursula went into the kitchen, where Mrs. Tody respectfully murmured: “I can’t get tea till Mr. Wenn comes out o’ the pantry, please madam, if you don’t mind!” “Are they here yet?” stammered Wenn in answer to Ursula’s mocking inquiries. “Quite a lot of people are here. Can I send anybody to interview you? The bearded gentleman, for instance----” “That’s Mr. Van Lou, what I’m letting this place to,” Wenn explained truculently. “No”--with a cautious drop in his tone--“it’s Miss Gregson and her Eye-talian that I don’t want to see. They were up tu Wright’s at noon--tes all over the village that they’m back again. And I don’t like ’em, Mrs. Barrison.” Ursula shrugged her shoulders. Then, as her ear caught an unfamiliar note in the added hubbub in the hall, she suggested mischievously: “Come out and tell them so. Here they are, back in their old home....” Wenn shrank limply against the wall. His knees gave. “It’s none o’ my business, letting this house. You’ll tell them so, Mrs. Barrison? If Abbott sells his lease to me, then Abbott’s my landlord, and there’s no need for me to talk to any one else about it. I’m best where I am, minding my own business without interfering....” “You’re a blustering coward without even the courage of your own villainies,” Ursula sweetly informed him, losing in that one minute all dread of Wenn as a sinister personage. “If any one asks me, I shall say you’re hiding in the pantry.” And she left him.