"Plenty," said Dickson sourly. "See here, Mr. Heritage. You can't
expect me to be going about burgling houses on the word of a
blagyird laddie. I'm a respectable man--aye been. Besides, I'm
here for a holiday, and I've no call to be mixing myself up in
strangers' affairs."

"You haven't. Only you see, I think there's a friend of mine in
that place, and anyhow there are women in trouble. If you like,
we'll say goodbye after breakfast, and you can continue as if you
had never turned aside to this damned peninsula. But I've got
to stay."

Dickson groaned. What had become of his dream of idylls, his gentle
bookish romance? Vanished before a reality which smacked horribly
of crude melodrama and possibly of sordid crime. His gorge rose at
the picture, but a thought troubled him. Perhaps all romance in its
hour of happening was rough and ugly like this, and only shone rosy
in retrospect. Was he being false to his deepest faith?

"Let's have Mrs. Morran in," he ventured. "She's a wise old body
and I'd like to hear her opinion of this business. We'll get common
sense from her."

"I don't object," said Heritage. "But no amount of common sense
will change my mind."

Their hostess forestalled them by returning at that moment
to the kitchen.