"Where is this shanty, as you call it?" she asked him.

"I really haven't the faintest idea," he replied. "I am looking
for it now. All I can tell you is that it stands just out of reach
of the full tides, on a piece of rock, dead on the beach and about
a mile from the station. It was built originally for a coastguard
station and meant to hold a lifeboat, but they found they could
never launch the lifeboat when they had it, so the man to whom all
the foreshore and most of the land around here belongs--a Mr.
Fentolin, I believe--sold it to my father. I expect the place has
tumbled to pieces by this time, but I thought I'd have a look at it."

She was gazing at him steadfastly now, with parted lips.

"What is your name?" she demanded.

"Richard Hamel."

"Hamel."

She repeated it lingeringly. It seemed quite unfamiliar.

"Was your father a great friend of Mr. Fentolin's, then?" she asked.

"I believe so, in a sort of way," he answered. "My father was Hamel
the artist, you know. They made him an R.A. some time before he
died. He used to come out here and live in a tent. Then Mr.
Fentolin let him use this place and finally sold it to him. My
father used often to speak to me about it before he died."