is a degrading thing to do so soon after breakfast, even if you are on a
holiday. Usually, Sally fought stoutly against the temptation, but
to-day the sun was so warm and the whisper of the waves so insinuating
that she had almost dozed off, when she was aroused by voices close at
hand. There were many voices on the beach, both near and distant, but
these were talking English, a novelty in Roville, and the sound of the
familiar tongue jerked Sally back from the borders of sleep. A few feet
away, two men had seated themselves on the sand.

From the first moment she had set out on her travels, it had been one of
Sally's principal amusements to examine the strangers whom chance threw
in her way and to try by the light of her intuition to fit them out with
characters and occupations: nor had she been discouraged by an almost
consistent failure to guess right. Out of the corner of her eye she
inspected these two men.

The first of the pair did not attract her. He was a tall, dark man
whose tight, precise mouth and rather high cheeks bones gave him an
appearance vaguely sinister. He had the dusky look of the clean-shaven
man whose life is a perpetual struggle with a determined beard. He
certainly shaved twice a day, and just as certainly had the self-control
not to swear when he cut himself. She could picture him smiling nastily
when this happened.

"Hard," diagnosed Sally. "I shouldn't like him. A lawyer or something,
I think."

She turned to the other and found herself looking into his eyes. This
was because he had been staring at Sally with the utmost intentness ever
since his arrival. His mouth had opened slightly. He had the air of a