“Very likely not,” Mr. Dunster agreed, “but, on the other hand, your country had never the right to put such a burden upon her honour.  Remember that side by side with those other considerations, a great statesman’s first duty is to the people over whom he watches, not to study the interests of other lands.  However, it’s finished.  The Hague Conference is broken up.  The official organs of the world allude to it, if at all, as an unimportant gathering called together to discuss certain frontier questions with which England had nothing to do.  But the memory of it will live.  A good cold douche for you people, I should say, and I hope you’ll take warning by it.  Whatever the attitude of America as a nation may be to these matters, the American people don’t want to see the old country in trouble.  Gee whiz!  What’s that?”

There was a little cry from all of them.  Only Hamel stood without sign of surprise, gazing downward with grim, set face.  A dull roar, like the booming of a gun, flashes of fire, and a column of smoke —­and all that was left of St. David’s Tower was one tottering wall and a scattered mass of masonry.

“I had an idea,” Hamel said quietly, “that St. David’s Tower was going to spoil the landscape for a good many years.  My property, you know, and there’s the end of it.  I am sick of seeing people for the last few days come down and take photographs of it for every little rag that goes to press.”

Mr. Dunster pointed out to the line of surf beyond.  “If only some hand,” he remarked, “could plant dynamite below that streak of white, so that the sea could disgorge its dead!  They tell me there’s a Spanish galleon there, and a Dutch warship, besides a score or more of fishing-boats.”

Mrs. Fentolin shivered a little.  She drew her cloak around her.  Gerald, who had been watching her, sprang to his feet.

“Come,” he exclaimed, “we chose the gardens for our last afternoon here, to be out of the way of these places!  We’ll go round the hill.”

Mrs. Fentolin shook her head once more.  Her face had recovered its serenity.  She looked downward gravely but with no sign of fear.

“There is nothing to terrify us there, Gerald,” she declared.  “The sea has gathered, and the sea will hold its own.”

Hamel held out his hand to Esther.

“I have destroyed the only house in the world which I possess,” he said.  “Come and look for violets with me in the spinney, and let us talk of the houses we are going to build, and the dreams we shall dream in them.”