“I know.” He had reached The Stade at Hastings Old Town. The sound of waves rolling in was regular and soothing, with no wind or storm to drive them today. He pulled to one side and watched the sea for a time. The whisper of the water just before it turned to race back into the sea was soft and seductive.

Rutledge had always liked the water. He’d learned to row at an early age but had never had the opportunity to sail. If the war hadn’t come when it did, he thought he might have taken the time to learn. His life had stretched before him then in measured decades, and he had been happy. Marriage lay ahead, and with luck, children. He would have grown old with them, and watched their children in turn take their first steps toward a life of their own. It would have been enough. But that had never happened. He wasn’t sure whether he missed it, or was glad that it had only been a dream. Broken dreams were easier to walk away from than broken lives.

He watched as sunlight danced across the water, and far out to sea a smudge of smoke marked the passage of a ship. Lines from O. A. Manning’s poetry came to mind and he was unaware that he’d spoken them aloud.

“I look now and then at the sea

And the reflection of myself is there.

Restless sometimes

Or calm, or angry,

Or even uncaring.

But never happy.

I remember then I came from the sea,

And someday must go home.”

Oddly enough, he had never liked the idea of drowning. The revolver was swifter and the darkness came faster. Max Hume had known what he was about.

Hamish said, “Aye, but first ye must write a letter to your sister.”

That jarred him. What would he tell Frances that she would understand?

And that had been Max’s dilemma and why he had not written to Rosemary.

Rutledge put the motorcar in gear again and drove west into Hastings New Town until he found a sizeable hotel. “There ought to be a telephone here,” he said under his breath and found a place to leave his vehicle.

The White Swans was built with a wide balustraded terrace across the main front, warmed by the sun and sheltered by a projecting wing on either side. A great deal of architectural detail, reminiscent of a wedding cake, gave the three-story hotel an elegant air, and judging from the handsomely dressed families sitting under broad pastel umbrellas as they finished late breakfasts, it was expensive as well.