A vast spread of the ocean unfolded to his gaze before he had reached the brink of the prominence.  His heavy-lidded eyes, sweeping to the right, rested on a heterogeneous group of dwellings scattered well above the sands and directly below a wooded uprising of land.  Myriad specks of light glimmered amid shadowy roofs.  Brownville?  Undoubtedly!  A board walk ran along the ocean and a small pier extended like an arm over the water.  On the faintly glistening sands old boats, drawn up here and there, resembled so many black footprints.

Not far from where Mr. Heatherbloom stood a path went downward, a shorter way to the village than by the road he had just left.  He stared unthinkingly a moment at the narrow walk; then began mechanically to descend.  A dull realization weighed on him that when he reached his destination the woman would be far away.  He wondered why he had gone on, under the circumstances—­why he had ever thought he stood a ghost of a chance of overtaking her?  Only the hopelessness of the situation, in all its grim verity, faced him now.

The path zigzagged through the bushes.  At a turn the village was lost to sight; in front was a sheer fall to the sea.  As he kept on, projecting branches struck him and raising his hand to guard his face, he, tripped and almost fell.  Recovering himself, he glanced down; something had caught on his shoe and he leaned over to loosen it.  His fingers closed on a long strip of soft substance—­a veil, the kind worn by women motoring!  Mr. Heatherbloom’s eyes rested on it apathetically, then with a sudden flash of interest; a faint but heavy perfume emanated from the silky filament.  It was darkish in hue—­brown, he should say; the Russian woman was partial to that color.  The thought came to him quickly; he stood bewildered.  What if it were hers?  Then how had it come here, on this narrow foot-path, unless—­Had the big car stopped at the top of the promontory and discharged its passengers there?  But why should it have done so; for what possible reason?

He could think of none.  Other women came this way—­the path was not difficult.  Other women wore brown veils.  And yet that odd familiar fragrance—­It seemed to belong to a foreign bizarre personality such as Sonia Turgeinov’s.

Crushing in his palm the veil he thrust it into his pocket.  He would find out more below, possibly; if she had actually passed this way.  A feverish zest was born anew; the authorities were looking for her as well as for himself, he remembered.  She, apparently, had so far cleverly evaded them; if he could but lead them to her he would not mind so much his own apprehension.  Her presence in the locality at the same time the Nevski had been in the harbor would fairly prove the correctness of his theory of Miss Dalrymple’s whereabouts.  If he could now deliver the Russian woman into the hands of the law, he would have a wedge to force the powers that be to give credence to at least the material part of his story—­that the prince had left port with the young girl—­and to compel them to see the necessity of acting at once.  That he, himself, would be held equally culpable with the woman was of no moment.