_really_ it was!"

"Garn!" replied the young ruffian as he opened the door and slammed it
behind him.




CHAPTER XIV

"Surely I am more brutish than any man!"--_The Bible_.


And just about midsummer Fate tweaked the string to which was hobbled
Susan Hetth.

A vulgar but resplendent bachelor middle-aged millionaire, sterling,
not dollars, in order to set his gastronomic house in order, had taken
a notion for the simple life for just as long as the notion should
last, and a perfect bijou of a thatched cottage t'other side of
Clovelly for a year.

With a notion of buying the cottage at Lee in which had dwelt the three
historic maids, he had swept one day through the village in the latest
thing in cars.

Baulked in his intent, and with time upon his podgy hands, he had
rolled, minus the car, along the village path over the strippet of
water and the sunbaked grass to the harbour.