holiday and found his death in it!” 

 “Did he do it on purpose? Is it suicide?” 

 “They say he had no reasons to do that.” 

 Here the sergeant of police in charge of the party interposed, according to orders, which he himself did not understand. 

 “A terrible thing, sir, to be sure, and a sad pity; and I am sure this is not the sort of sight you have come to see down in Meirion this beautiful summer. So don’t you think, sir, that it would be more pleasant like, if you would leave us to this sad business of ours? I have heard many gentlemen staying in Porth say that there is nothing to beat the view from the hill over there, not in the whole of Wales.” 

 Every one is polite in Meirion, but somehow Merritt understood that, in English, this speech meant “move on.” 

 Merritt moved back to Porth—he was not in the humor for any idle, pleasurable strolling after so dreadful a meeting with death. He made some inquiries in the town about the dead man, but nothing seemed known of him. It was said that he had been on his honeymoon, that he had been staying at the Porth Castle Hotel; but the people of the hotel declared that they had never heard of such a person. Merritt got the local paper at the end of the week; there was not a word in it of any fatal accident in the marsh. He met the sergeant of police in the street. That officer touched his helmet with the utmost politeness and a “hope you are enjoying yourself, sir; indeed you do look a lot better already”; but as to the poor man who was found drowned or stifled in the marsh, he knew nothing. 

 The next day Merritt made up his mind to go to the marsh to see whether he could find anything to account for so strange a death. What he found was a man with an armlet standing by the gate. The armlet had the letters “C.W.” on it, which are understood to mean Coast Watcher. The Watcher said he had strict instructions to keep everybody away from the marsh. Why? He didn’t know, but some said that the river was changing its course since the new railway embankment was built, and the marsh had become dangerous to people who didn’t know it thoroughly. 

 “Indeed, sir,” he added, “it is part of my orders not to set foot on the other side of that gate myself, not for one scrag-end of a minute.” 

 Merritt glanced over the gate incredulously. The marsh looked as it had always looked; there was 

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