“That seems hard,” he observed sympathetically.  “It seems odd to hear you talk like that, too.  Your life, surely, ought to be pleasant enough.”

She looked away from the sea into his face.  Although the genuine interest which she saw there and the kindly expression of his eyes disarmed annoyance, she still stiffened slightly.

“Why ought it?”

The question was a little bewildering.

“Why, because you are young and a girl,” he replied.  “It’s natural to be cheerful, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” she answered listlessly.  “I cannot tell.  I have not had much experience.”

“How old are you?” he asked bluntly.

This time it certainly seemed as though her reply would contain some rebuke for his curiosity.  She glanced once more into his face, however, and the instinctive desire to administer that well-deserved snub passed away.  He was so obviously interested, his question was asked so naturally, that its spice of impertinence was as though it had not existed.

“I am twenty-one,” she told him.

“And how long have you lived here?”

“Since I left boarding-school, four years ago.”

“Anywhere near where I am going to bury myself for a time, I wonder?” he went on.

“That depends,” she replied.  “Our only neighbours are the Lorneybrookes of Market Burnham.  Are you going there?”

He shook his head.

“I’ve got a little shanty of my own,” he explained, “quite close to St. David’s Station.  I’ve never even seen it yet.”

She vouchsafed some slight show of curiosity.

“Where is this shanty, as you call it?” she asked him.

“I really haven’t the faintest idea,” he replied.  “I am looking for it now.  All I can tell you is that it stands just out of reach of the full tides, on a piece of rock, dead on the beach and about a mile from the station.  It was built originally for a coastguard station and meant to hold a lifeboat, but they found they could never launch the lifeboat when they had it, so the man to whom all the foreshore and most of the land around here belongs—­a Mr. Fentolin, I believe—­sold it to my father.  I expect the place has tumbled to pieces by this time, but I thought I’d have a look at it.”

She was gazing at him steadfastly now, with parted lips.

“What is your name?” she demanded.

“Richard Hamel.”

“Hamel.”

She repeated it lingeringly.  It seemed quite unfamiliar.

“Was your father a great friend of Mr. Fentolin’s, then?” she asked.

“I believe so, in a sort of way,” he answered.  “My father was Hamel the artist, you know.  They made him an R.A. some time before he died.  He used to come out here and live in a tent.  Then Mr. Fentolin let him use this place and finally sold it to him.  My father used often to speak to me about it before he died.”

“Tell me,” she enquired, “I do not know much about these matters, but have you any papers to prove that it was sold to your father and that you have the right to occupy it now when you choose?”