a bright spot of colour against the brown cliff-side. A rough path,
steep and winding, led up from the beach below, and about half-way up a
small gate, jealously padlocked in the owner's absence, guarded Rufus's
privacy. He never invited any one within that gate. Occasionally his
father would saunter up with his evening pipe and sit in the little
porch of his old home looking through the purple clematis flowers out to
sea while he exchanged a few commonplace remarks with his son, who never
broke his own silence unless he had something to say. But no other
visitor ever intruded there.

Rufus had acquired the reputation of a hermit, and it kept all the rest
at bay. He had lived his own life for so long that solitude had grown
upon him as moss clings to a stone. He did not seem to feel the need of
human companionship. He lived apart.

Sometimes, indeed, he would go down to The Ship in the evening and
lounge in the bar with the rest, but even there his solitude still
wrapped him round. He never expanded, however genial the atmosphere.

The other men treated him with instinctive respect. He was powerful
enough to thrash any two of them, and no one cared to provoke him to
wrath. For Rufus in anger was a veritable mad bull.

"Leave him alone! He's not safe!" was the general advice and warning of
his fellows, and none but Adam ever interfered with him.

Just recently, however, Adam had begun to take a somewhat quizzical
interest in the welfare of his son. It had been an established custom
ever since his second marriage that Rufus should eat his Sunday dinner
at the family table down at The Ship. Mrs. Peck--Adam's wife was never