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 e road, while the staid man loitered for a moment by the gate and watched her as she went.

Now as he took his eyes away and glanced for an instant in the other direction, he was aware of a man who had just come round the angle of the garden hedge and, standing in the middle of the road, not a dozen yards off, was also staring after his wife.

This stranger was a broad-shouldered fellow in a suit of blue seaman's cloth, the trousers of which were tucked inside a pair of Wellington boots. His complexion was brown as a nut, and he wore rings in his ears: but the features were British enough. A perplexed, ingratiating and rather silly smile overspread them.

The two men regarded each other for a bit, and then the stranger drew nearer.

"I do believe that was Na'mi," he said, nodding his head after the woman's figure, that had not yet passed out of sight.

William Geake opened his eyes wide and answered curtly, "Yes: that's my wife--Naomi Geake. What then?"

The man scratched his head, contemplating William as he might some illegible sign-post set up at an unusually bothersome cross-road.