all round the town. That's the time for you to go. That will liberate you if you throw yourself into it. It's in August. August the I'm not quite sure of the date. I'll write to you if you'll give me your address."
Soon afterwards, with a warm clasp of the hand, they parted.
VI
Two days later Harkness received a small parcel. Opening it he discovered an old brown-covered book and a letter.
The letter was as follows:
Dear Mr. Harkness—In all probability in the cold light of reason, and removed from the fumes of the Reform Club, our conversation of yesterday will seem to you nothing but foolishness. Perhaps it was. The merest chance led me to think of something that belongs, for me, to a life quite dead and gone; not perhaps as dead, though, as I had fancied it. In any case, I had not, until yesterday, thought directly of Treliss for years.
Let us put it on the simplest ground. If you want a beautiful place, near at hand, for a holiday, that you have not yet seen, here it is—Treliss, North Cornwall—take the morning train from Paddington and change at Trewth. If you will be advised by me you really should go down for August 6th, when they have their dance. I could see that you are interested in local customs, and here is a most entertaining one surviving from Druid times, I believe. Go down on the day itself and let that be your first impression of the place. The train gets you in between five and six. Take your room at the "Man-at-Arms" Hotel, ten years ago the most picturesque inn in Great Britain. I cannot, of course, vouch for what it may have become. I should get
