Martin excused Mr. Wedderburn’s hastiness with a slight wave of his hand, and said all there was to say. It was very little: Mr. Dalyell, a man very well known, had been seen to arrive at the station, and had been met by various people on his way to the sea. He was not in the habit of using the bathing machines, as indeed few gentlemen were. There was no special danger about the spot, and it was a calm day, and he was a good swimmer. Of course the place was a little out of the way, and east of the sands, as was indispensable when gentlemen bathed without any machine; but nothing out of the ordinary--many men did the same, and Mr. Dalyell did it constantly. No cry of distress had been heard, nor any other signs of a catastrophe. This little mound of clothes, flung down with the conviction of perfect security, the watch in the pocket, a shilling or two dropped on the sands as the things were moved--this was all. “The body,” Martin said, dropping his already subdued voice, “had not been found.” The body! Surely it was premature still to talk of that. “He might have been carried along by the current further east and got to land there.” “A naked man, sir--without any clothes! There would soon have been word of such a wonder as that--and somebody sent on for the things. We took all that into consideration.” “I must go down myself at once,” said the lawyer. “I sent Gibson, sir, the first thing.” “What’s Gibson to me?” said Mr. Wedderburn, with a sort of roar of trouble, anger, and misery combined. “I must go myself.” “There are a number of letters,” said Martin, “that might want answering.” “Letters! when Bob Dalyell’s lying somewhere dead or dying.” “Oh, sir,” said Martin, “in the midst of life we are in death. If it’s poor Mr. D’yell--and there’s no reasonable doubt on the subject--he’s dead long, long before now.” Wedderburn made a dash through the air with his clenched fist, as if he had been knocking down a too sympathetic clerk, and took his hat, and darted away. “Old Pat’s in one of his grandest tempers,” a young clerk permitted himself to say in Mr. Martin’s hearing, as the door closed with a violent swing behind their employer. “Old Pat!--if it’s our respected superior, Mr. Wedderburn, that ye mean by that familiar no to say contemptuous epithet,” said Mr. Martin--“he has just heard of the loss of his dearest friend. You would do better to feel for him than to mock at a good man in trouble, my young friend.”