There was a pause. Graham looked at their faces
and saw that what he had heard was indeed true.

"But it can't be," he said querulously. "I am
dreaming. Trances. Trances don't last. That is not
right -- this is a joke you have played upon me! Tell
me -- some days ago, perhaps, I was walking along
the coast of Cornwall -- ?"

His voice failed him.

The man with the flaxen beard hesitated. "I'm
not very strong in history, sir," he said weakly, and
glanced at the others.

"That was it, sir," said the youngster. "Boscastle,
in the old Duchy of Cornwall -- it's in the southwest
country beyond the dairy meadows. There is a house
there still. I have been there."

"Boscastle!" Graham turned his eyes to the
youngster. "That was it -- Boscastle. Little Boscastle.
I fell asleep -- somewhere there. I don't
exactly remember. I don't exactly remember."

He pressed his brows and whispered, "More than
two hundred years!"

He began to speak quickly with a twitching face,