ain expectation of their coming, he decided he would not go
to sleep at all that night, but would crawl down to the landing-place to
welcome them.

He wondered if that mad woman Julie had given up watching them, and, if
not, if they would be able to circumvent her again. In any case, he
hoped that if only one of them came it might be Nance. He fairly ached
for the sight and sound of her--and the feel of her little hand, and a
warm frank kiss from the lips that knew no guile.

The sufferings of the storm became as nothing to him in this large hope
and expectation of her coming.

The intervening hours dragged slowly. It would be half-ebb soon after
dark, he thought; and he crept up to the ridge and gazed anxiously over
at the Race between him and Breniere, to see if it showed any unusual
symptoms after the storm.

It ran furiously enough, but, he said to himself, it would slacken on
the ebb, and they were so familiar with it that it would take more than
that to stop them coming.

Before dark the great seas were rolling past, a little quicker than
usual, he thought, but in long, smooth undulations, which slipped,
unbroken and soundless, even along the black ledges of his rock. And
when the stars came out--brighter than ever with the burnishing of the
gale--the long black backs of the waves, and the darker hollows between,
were sown so thick with trailing gleams that he could not be certain
whether it was only star-shine or phosphorescence.

It was all very peaceful and beautiful, however, and very welcome to
eyes that had not looked upon sun, moon, or star for eight whole nights
and days, and whose ears had grown hardened to the ceaseless clamour of
the gale. Nature, indeed, seemed preternaturally quiet, as though
exhausted with her previous violence or desirous of wiping out the
remembrance of it; just as small humanity after an outbreak endeavours
at times to purge the memory of its offence by display of unusual
amiability and sweetness.

Eager to welcome his confidently expected visitors, Gard crept along the
ridge as soon as it was dark, and posted himself on the point which, in
the daylight, commanded the passage from Breniere.

And he sat there so long--so long after his hopes and wishes had flown
over to Sark and hurried Bernel and Nance into a boat and landed them on
L'Etat--that the night seemed running out, and he began to fear they
were not coming, after all.

In the troubled darkness of the Race, he