with his forehead resting on his folded arms, light-headed and
thinking. It seemed to him that he must be on fire, then that he
had fallen into a cool whirlpool, a smooth funnel of water swirling
about with nauseating rapidity. And then (it must have been a
reminiscence of his boyhood) he was walking on the dangerous thin
ice of a river, unable to turn back. . . . Suddenly it parted from
shore to shore with a loud crack like the report of a gun.

With one leap he found himself on his feet. All was peace,
stillness, sunshine. He walked away from there slowly. Had he
been a gambler he would have perhaps been supported in a measure by
the mere excitement. But he was not a gambler. He had always
disdained that artificial manner of challenging the fates. The
bungalow came into view, bright and pretty, and all about
everything was peace, stillness, sunshine. . . .

While he was plodding towards it he had a disagreeable sense of the
dead man's company at his elbow. The ghost! He seemed to be
everywhere but in his grave. Could one ever shake him off? he
wondered. At that moment Miss Moorsom came out on the verandah;
and at once, as if by a mystery of radiating waves, she roused a
great tumult in his heart, shook earth and sky together--but he
plodded on. Then like a grave song-note in the storm her voice
came to him ominously.

"Ah! Mr. Renouard. . . " He came up and smiled, but she was very
serious. "I can't keep still any longer. Is there time to walk up
this headland and back before dark?"

The shadows were lying lengthened on the ground; all was stillness