Quicksands

Excerpt: "One sultry September afternoon, some years ago, my brother Ronald and I, being tired and dusty, found a temporary resting-place on the parapet of a little old bridge that spanned a sleepy stream. Through a thin silk blouse a comforting sun beat upon my back, and I was serenely conscious of an unusual sense of happiness and well-being - though I owed little to my surroundings. In all England it would have been difficult to find a more featureless and monotonous outlook than the prospect