I thought of the werewolf of Mr. Sant’s story. So damned, so abhorrent, so pitiful appeared this grey shadow moving at my side. He put his arm within mine, and hurried me up and down the desolate beach. The grinding of the sea seemed to hush itself, the drooping pall of sky to rise aloof from us. I was full of excitement and agitation, carried altogether without the oppression of the thoughts which had been vexing me. “Ask,” he cried, feverishly pressing my arm. “Give me the chance to unburden my heart to my one true friend, I do believe, God help me, in all the world! I have not found Abel, Richard--ah! may I call you Richard?--I have not found Abel, though through these long years I have never ceased to hunt him--his shadow, some sound of his voice, some track of his footsteps.” “To right yourself with the world?” I asked. “Let it fall from me--the vampire!” he cried, contemptuously. “You are all the world I care, as your father was before you. It is not Abel I want, Richard; it is the secret he carried away with him--the secret, or the clue to it, which I have maddened after, pursuing it, the wicket friar’s-lantern, down the long mire of these coasts.” “Secret?” I said, wondering. “What secret?” “The book,” he answered--snapped, rather. I turned and stared at him as we walked. “You mean the book that--that you fought about?” He nodded. “Why,” I sniggered, incredulous, “was it worth all this?” He did not resent my youthful irony--met it with a solemn self-deprecation, in fact. “God knows, dear boy!” he said. “This, and more, I thought once. Now, Richard, forbear to indulge a lust till it masters you. I have damned myself like the wandering Jew. I have no rest in rest. The quest has become an obsession, a craze, which not even the discovery of the treasure itself could, I believe, appease.” “Phew!” I whistled, soft and amazed. “A treasure, was it?” “Yes,” he said. “And somewhere on these coasts, I think you said?” “Somewhere on these east coasts.” I stopped in sheer excitement. “I don’t wonder. They are choke full of--of things. And have you been tramping them ever since I saw you last?” “On and off; up and down; to and fro.” “It must have been tiring, and--and a bit expensive.” He smacked his hand to his breast. “There is a hundred or two left here yet. ‘Equity’--you remember your friend’s words?--‘equity is justice.’” “You got your thousand pounds?” “I got my thousand pounds.” A longish silence fell between us. “Mr. Pilbrow,” I said at last, “what has brought you here?” “Destiny,” he answered at once; “yours and mine.” “It was quite accidental, this meeting?” “As the world would consider it--quite.” “Well,” I said, after a pause, “it is very wonderful; and most of all your knowing me again. I--I hope you will be here a day or two. I must be going home.” He looked at me with his strange wolf’s eyes. “I only arrived last night,” he said. “You live here?--but, of course.”