pinned upon the wall, and a battered map of the neighbourhood,
back to the table at which he had been seated. He selected a
cigarette and lit it. Presently he began to talk to himself, a
habit which had grown upon him during the latter years of a life
whose secret had entailed a certain amount of solitude.

"Perhaps," he murmured, "I am psychic. Nevertheless, I am
convinced that something is happening, something not far away."

He stood for a while, listening intently, the cigarette burning
away between his fingers. Then, stooping a little, he passed out
into the narrow passage and opened the door into the kitchen
behind, from which the woman who came to minister to their wants
had some time ago departed. Everything was in order here and
spotlessly neat. He climbed the narrow staircase, looked in at
Furley's room and his own, and at the third apartment, in which
had been rigged up a temporary bath. The result was
unilluminating. He turned and descended the stairs.

"Either," he went on, with a very slight frown, "I am not psychic,
or whatever may be happening is happening out of doors."

He raised the latch of the door, under which a little pool of
water was now standing, and leaned out. There seemed to be a
curious cessation of immediate sounds. From somewhere straight
ahead of him, on the other side of that black velvet curtain of
darkness, came the dull booming of the wind, tearing across the
face of the marshes; and beyond it, beating time in a rhythmical
sullen roar, the rise and fall of the sea upon the shingle. But
near at hand, for some reason, there was almost silence. The rain