“It is the physical life in your veins—­too splendid to permit you abstract pleasures.  Compensations again, you see—­compensations.  I wonder what the law is that governs these things.  I have forgotten sometimes,” he went on, “forgotten my own infirmities in the soft intoxication of a wonderful seascape.  Only,” he went on, his face a little grey, “it is the physical in life which triumphs.  There are the hungry hours which nothing will satisfy.”

His head sank, his chin rested upon his chest.  He had all the appearance now of a man who talks in bitter earnest.  Yet Hamel wondered.  He looked towards the Tower; there was no sign of Meekins.  The sea-gulls went screaming above their heads.  Mr. Fentolin never moved.  His eyes seemed half closed.  It was only when Hamel rose to his feet that he looked swiftly up.

“Stay with me, I beg you, Mr. Hamel,” he said.  “I am in one of the moods when solitude, even for a moment, is dangerous.  Do you know what I have sometimes thought to myself?”

He pointed to the planked way which led down the steep, pebbly beach to the sea.

“I have sometimes thought,” he went on, “that it would be glorious to find a friend to stand by my side at the top of the planks, just there, when the tide was high, and to bid him loose my chair and to steer it myself, to steer it down the narrow path into the arms of the sea.  The first touch of the salt waves, the last touch of life.  Why not?  One sleeps without fear.”

He lifted his head suddenly.  Meekins had appeared, coming round from the back of the Tower.  Instantly Mr. Fentolin’s whole manner changed.  He sat up in his chair.

“It is arranged, then,” he said.  “You dine with us to-night.  For the other matters of which you have spoken, well, let them rest in the hands of the gods.  You are not very kind to me.  I am not sure whether you would make Esther a good husband.  I am not sure, even, that I like you.  You take no pains to make yourself agreeable.  Considering that your father was an artist, you seem to me rather a dull and uninspired young man.  But who can tell?  There may be things stirring beneath that torpid brain of yours of which no other person knows save yourself.”

The concentrated gaze of Mr. Fentolin’s keen eyes was hard to meet, but Hamel came out of the ordeal without flinching.

“At eight o’clock, Mr. Fentolin,” he answered.  “I can see that I must try to earn your better opinion.”

Hamel read steadily for the remainder of the morning.  It was past one o’clock when he rose stiffly from his seat among the sand knolls and, strolling back to the Tower, opened the door and entered.  The cloth was laid for luncheon in the little sitting-room, but there were no signs of Hannah Cox.  He passed on into the kitchen and came to a sudden standstill.  Once more the memory of his own work passed away from him.  Once more he was back again among that queer, clouded tangle of strange suspicions, of thrilling, half-formed fears, which had assailed him at times ever since his arrival at St, David’s.  He stopped quite short.  The words which rose to his lips died away.  He felt the breathless, compelling need for silence and grew tense in the effort to make no sound.