According to what they told him, most of these people had been out and about all the previous afternoon; it had been a particularly fine day, that Sunday, and they had all been out of doors, on the quay and the shore, in the sunshine.

But nobody had any recollection of the man described, and Copplestone came to the conclusion that Oliver had not chosen that side of the bay.

There was, however, one objection to that theory--so far as he could judge, that side was certainly the more attractive.

And he himself went on to the end of it--on until he had left quay and village far behind, and had come to a spit of sand which ran out into the sea exactly opposite the group of rocks of which Mrs.Wooler had spoken.

There they lay, rising out of the surf like great monsters, a half-mile from where he stood.