t stood up there in God's face and cried, 'You
can't hurt me!'"

"Yes, most presumptuous and provoking," said Garstin; and so they fell
to talking of the boy, who, at all events, should fulfil his
destiny very far inland from the sea. Mrs. Garstin leaned to the
linen-drapery; Garstin inclined to the free library.

"Well, I will come down to the North Foreland," said I, "and you shall
tell me which way it is."

"Yes, if--" said Garstin, and stopped.

"Yes, if--" repeated his wife, with a nod of the head.

"Oh! it won't go this winter," said I.

And it didn't. But, on the other hand, Garstin did not go to the North
Foreland, nor for two years did I hear any more of him. But two years
later I returned to St. Mary's and walked across the beach of the
island to the little graveyard by the sea. A new tablet upon the outer
wall of the church caught and held my eye. I read the inscription and
remained incredulous. For the Bishop still stood. But the letters were
there engraved upon the plate, and as I read them again, the futility
of Garstin's fears was enforced upon me with a singular pathos.

For the Bishop still stood and Garstin had died on the Christmas Eve
of that last year which he was to spend upon rock lighthouses. Of how
he died the tablet gave a hint, but no more than a hint. There were
four words inscribed underneath his name:

"And he was not."

I walked back to Hugh Town, wondering at the tragedy which those four
words half hid and half revealed, and remembering that the tide runs
seven miles an hour past the Bishop, with many eddies and whirlpools.
Almost unconsciously I went up the hill above Hugh Town and came to
the signal station on the top of the garrison. And so occupied was I
with my recollections of Garstin that it did not strike me as strange
that I should find Mrs. Garstin standing now where he had stood and
looking out to the Bishop as he was used to look.

"I had not heard," I said to her.

"No?" she returned simply, and again turned her eyes seawards. It was
late on a midsummer afternoon. The sun hung a foot or so above the
water, a huge ball of dull red fire, and from St. Mary's out to the
horizon's rim the sea stretched a rippling lagoon of the colour of
claret. Over the whole expanse there was but one boat visible, a
lugger, between Sennen and St. Agnes, beating homewards against a
light wind.

"It was a storm, I suppose," said I. "A storm out of the west?"

"No. There was no wi