suited to the pavement than the rural quiet of Farlingford. To have
the gift of tongues is no great recommendation to the British born,
and River Andrew looked askance at this fine gentleman while he
spoke French. He had received letters at the post-office under the
name of Dormer Colville: a name not unknown in London and Paris,
but of which the social fame had failed to travel even to Ipswich,
twenty miles away from this mouldering churchyard.

"It's getting on for twenty-five years come Michaelmas," put in
River Andrew. "I wasn't digger then; but I remember the burial well
enough. And I remember Frenchman--same as if I see him yesterday."

He plucked a blade of grass from the grave and placed it between his
teeth.

"He were a mystery, he were," he added, darkly, and turned to look
musingly across the marshes toward the distant sea. For River
Andrew, like many hawkers of cheap wares, knew the indirect
commercial value of news.

The little white-haired Frenchman made a gesture of the shoulders
and outspread hands indicative of a pious horror at the condition of
this neglected grave. The meaning of his attitude was so obvious
that River Andrew shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

"Passen," he said, "he don't take no account of the graves. He's
what you might call a bookworm. Always a sitting indoors reading
books and pictures. Butcher Franks turns his sheep in from time to
time. But along of these tempests and the hot sun the grass has
shot up a bit. Frenchman's no worse off than others. And there's