It was a little after seven on a summer morning, and William Potticary was taking his accustomed way over the short down grass of the cliff-top. Beyond his elbow, two hundred feet below, lay the Channel, very still and shining, like a milky opal. All roundabout him hung the bright air, empty as yet of larks. In all the sunlit world no sound except for the screaming of some sea gulls on the distant beach; no human activity except for the small lonely figure of Potticary himself, square and dark and uncompromising.