Duncombe seemed determined that nothing which had happened should interfere with the success of the picnic. He abandoned all his reserve, related anecdotes, chaffed everybody in turn, opened wine, and absolutely created an atmosphere of pleasure. Leonard told stories and Rose sang to us and danced upon the sands. Arthur, after a preliminary fit of gloom, drank far too much champagne for his age and became, in his rather clumsy way, as light-hearted as the rest. He and Ella sat for some time apart from the others, his arm drawn through hers, until presently they wandered off together to look for Venetian shells, the spoils of some long-forgotten shipwreck. On the whole, the excursion which I had seen foredoomed to failure, turned out a great success. Duncombe only once, during the rest of the afternoon, referred to the disturbing subject. "You don't suppose," he suggested, "that Arthur is thinking any more about that little affair, eh?" "Why should he?" I answered coolly. "He must know that you made a mistake." "Naturally," Duncombe assented. "I still don't think he'd have come to any harm unless he bungled his dive, but I'm glad, all the same, that you noticed the rocks." That marked the end of the incidents worthy of note connected with the picnic, except that Arthur and Ella stayed away for over an hour, and that when they returned she was clinging to his arm with an almost protective air. That night, for the first time, not a single member from the Grange turned up at our performance. Somehow or other, when I started for my customary early morning walk on the following day, I knew that there was tragedy in the air. A strange mist, presage of storm and heat, hung like an oppressive curtain over the land and stretched out seawards. I almost regretted, as I stood at the end of the little jetty, that I had not departed from my usual custom and bathed. The thought made me look back towards the shore. Duncombe, in his dressing gown, had just left the gardens of the Grange and was descending the shingle to the sands. I watched him throw off his gown and wade into the water. Presently he turned on his side and began swimming slowly out. Watching him, I felt more than ever inclined to go and fetch my own bathing clothes. Then, as I hesitated, I noticed Arthur, following through the Grange gardens, scramble down the shingle, throw off his dressing gown and also plunge into the sea. Something a little furtive about the manner in which he made his way across the lawn, keeping always to the side of the hedge as though to escape observation, and his subsequent almost crawling progress along the shingle, puzzled me. I had been down here many mornings, but I had never seen Arthur bathing before. He was in the water now, and swimming out with long, powerful strokes towards Duncombe.