He had come over to England for a rest after a severe illness, and with an intense craving, after his twenty years of stress and toil, to stand aside and watch the world--the English, conservative world he loved--dawdle by.
He wanted to bury himself in an unknown fishing-town and associate with the simple, unflurried fisher-folk alone.

It was a dream of his--a dream which he had imagined near its fulfilment when he had arrived in the peaceful little world of Old Silverstrand.
There was a large and fashionable watering-place five miles away.

This was New Silverstrand, a town of red brick, self-centred and prosperous.
But he had not thought that its visitors would have overflowed into the old fishing-town.

He himself saw no attraction there save the peace of the shore and the turmoil of the sea.

He had known and loved the old town in his youth, long before the new one had been built or even thought of.