gravel pit.

"To think," I said aloud, "that those old woman's tales of Max Fortin
and Le Bihan should have actually made me see what didn't exist at all!
I lost my nerve like a schoolboy in a dark bedroom." For I knew now that
I had mistaken a round stone for a skull each time, and had pushed a
couple of big pebbles into the pit instead of the skull itself.

"By jingo!" said I, "I'm nervous; my liver must be in a devil of a
condition if I see such things when I'm awake! Lys will know what to
give me."

I felt mortified and irritated and sulky, and thought disgustedly of Le
Bihan and Max Fortin.

But after a while I ceased speculating, dismissed the mayor, the
chemist, and the skull from my mind, and smoked pensively, watching the
sun low dipping in the western ocean. As the twilight fell for a moment
over ocean and moorland, a wistful, restless happiness filled my heart,
the happiness that all men know--all men who have loved.

Slowly the purple mist crept out over the sea; the cliffs darkened; the
forest was shrouded.

Suddenly the sky above burned with the afterglow, and the world was
alight again.

Cloud after cloud caught the rose dye; the cliffs were tinted with it;
moor and pasture, heather and forest burned and pulsated with the
gentle flush. I saw the gulls turning and tossing above the sand bar,