mind and gone comfortably to sleep. The early dawn breeze was blowing
from the sea when she dozed into a brief, dream-troubled sleep.

XII

AT OCEAN'S EDGE

Only the gardeners and a few of the house servants were about when she
went down-stairs, through the still house and out on to the terraces,
towards the sea. She had hung the white and silver finery carefully
away, glad to feel so far divorced from it and all it represented as
she did in her gown of unbleached linen crash which she and Godmother
had made.

"I'm like Cinderella," she reminded herself as she buttoned the crash
gown, "Godmother and all. Only, her prince loved her when he saw her
in her finery, and mine despised me. I suppose he thought I was a
silly little 'climber' trying to get out of the chimney-corner where I
belong. But I think he owed it to me to let me explain."

There was a cove on the shore whose shelter she particularly loved; and
she was going thither now, as these bitter reflections filled her mind.
The tide was ebbing, but the thin, slowly-widening line of beach was
wet and she had to pick her way carefully. She was so mindful of her
steps and, under all her mindfulness, so conscious of the ache in her
heart, that she was not noticing much else than the way to pick her
steps; and she had rounded the rocky corner of the cove and was far
into her favoured little nook, when she saw that it was occupied. A
man sat back in its deepest shelter, looking out to sea. He started
when he saw her, and she looked back as if calculating a flight.

"Please don't go," he begged, rising to greet her. "I was unpardonably
rude to you last night and it has made me very wretched. You have no
right to pardon me, but I hope you won't go away without letting me
tell you how sorry I am."

"I--it was nothing--I pardon you--I think I understand," said Mary
Alice, weakly.

He shook his head. "How could you--who are so gentle--understand?"
Mary Alice looked about to protest, but he silenced her with a
commanding gesture. "I've been so much with savages that I've grown
savage in my own ways, it seems. But--it was like this: You taught me
a game, once. It was a charming game and I was glad to learn. But we
could play it only twice, and then I had to go away. And after I went
I--I was always missing the game, always wanting to play again. At
what you called 'candle-lightin' time,' wherever I was--in strange
drawing-rooms, on rushing exp