And then the spell developed.  A nameless but loathsome fascination drew me from my seat, drew me with uneven and reluctant footsteps out of the gate and down the narrow straight road.  There was still not a soul in sight.  I drew nearer and nearer to the spot.  Once more I essayed to move him.  It was utterly in vain.  Such nerve as I possessed had left me wholly and altogether.  A sense of repulsion, nauseating, invincible, made a child of me.  I stood up and looked around wildly.  It was then for the first time I saw what my right foot had trodden into the sand.

I picked it up, and a little cry, unheard save by the sea-birds which circled about my head, broke from my lips.  It was a man’s signet ring, thin and worn smooth with age.  It was quaintly shaped, and in the centre was set a small jet-black stone.  The device was a bird, and underneath the motto—­“Vinco!”

My hand closed suddenly upon it, and again I looked searchingly around.  There was not a soul in sight.  I slipped the ring into my waistcoat pocket and moved back to the white railings.  I leaned against them, and, taking a pipe and tobacco from my pocket, began to smoke.

Strangely enough, I had now recovered my nerve.  I was able to think and reason calmly.  The woman at the lodge had taken it for granted that this man’s body had been thrown up by the sea.  Was that a possible conclusion?  There was a line all down the sands where the tide had reached, a straggling uneven line marked with huge masses of wet seaweeds, fragments of timber, the flotsam and jetsam of the sea.  The creek where the man’s body was lying was forty yards above this.  Yet on such a night who could say where those great breakers, driven in by the wind as well as by their own mighty force, might not have cast their prey?  Within a few yards of him was a jagged mass of timber.  The cause of those wounds would be obvious enough.  I felt the ring in my waistcoat pocket—­it was there, safely enough hidden, and I looked toward the lodge.  As yet there were no signs of John or the cart.

But behind me, coming from the village, I heard the sound of light and rapid footsteps.  I turned my head.  It was Blanche Moyat, short-skirted, a stick in her hand, a feather stuck through her Tam-o’-Shanter.

“Good-morning,” she cried out heartily; “I’ve been to call at your cottage.”

“Very kind of you,” I answered, hesitatingly.  Miss Moyat was good-hearted, but a little overpowering—­and in certain moods she reminded me of her father.

“Oh, I had an errand,” she explained, laughing.  “Father said if I saw you I was to say that he has to call on the Duke this afternoon, and, if you liked, he would explain about your lecture last night, and try and get the village hall for you for nothing.  The Duke is very good-natured, and if he knows that he spoilt your evening, father thinks he might let you have it for nothing.”

“It is very kind of your father,” I answered.  “I do not think that I shall ever give that lecture again.”