And if we've heard nothing--" He shook his head significantly, as he turned away, and Copplestone, taking the other direction, felt that the manager's despondency was influencing himself.

A sudden disappearance of this sort was surely not to be explained easily--nothing but exceptional happenings could have kept Bassett Oliver from the scene of his week's labours.

There must have been an accident--it needed little imagination to conjure up its easy occurrence.

A too careless step, a too near approach, a loose stone, a sudden giving way of crumbling soil, the shifting of an already detached rock--any of these things might happen, and then--but the thought of what might follow cast a greyer tint over the already cold and grey sea.
He went on amongst the old cottages and fishing huts which lay at the foot of the wooded heights on the tops of whose pines and firs the gaunt ruins of the old Keep seemed to stand sentinel.

He made inquiry at open doors and of little groups of men gathered on the quay and by the drawn-up boats--nobody knew anything.