in silence. When she
entered the boat he had the sculls ready and directly she sat down he
shoved off. It was so dark yet that but for the brig's yard-arm light he
could not have kept his direction. He pulled a very deliberate stroke,
looking over his shoulder frequently. It was Mrs. Travers who saw first
the faint gleam of the uncovered sandspit on the black, quiet water.

"A little more to the left," she said. "No, the other way. . . ."
D'Alcacer obeyed her directions but his stroke grew even slower than
before. She spoke again. "Don't you think that the uttermost farthing
should always be paid, Mr. d'Alcacer?"

D'Alcacer glanced over his shoulder, then: "It would be the only
honourable way. But it may be hard. Too hard for our common fearful
hearts."

"I am prepared for anything."

He ceased pulling for a moment . . . "Anything that may be found on
a sandbank," Mrs. Travers went on. "On an arid, insignificant, and
deserted sandbank."

D'Alcacer gave two strokes and ceased again.

"There is room for a whole world of suffering on a sandbank, for all the
bitterness and resentment a human soul may be made to feel."

"Yes, I suppose you would know," she whispered while he gave a stroke or
two and again glanced over his shoulder. She murmured the words:

"Bitterness, resentment," and a moment afterward became aware of the
keel of the boat running up on the sand. But she didn't move, and
d'Alcacer, too, remained seated on the thwart with the blades of his
sculls raised as if ready to drop them and back the dinghy out into deep
water at the first sign.

Mrs. Travers made no sign, but she asked, abruptly: "Mr. d'Alcacer, do
you think I shall ever come back?"

Her tone seemed to him to lack sincerity. But who could tell what
this abruptness covered--sincere fear or mere vanity? He asked himself
whether she was playing a part for his benefit, or only for herself.

"I don't think you quite understand the situation, Mrs. Travers. I
don't think you have a clear idea, either of his simplicity or of his
visionary's pride."

She thought, contemptuously, that there were other things which
d'Alcacer didn't know and surrendered to a sudden temptation to
enlighten him a little.

"You forget his capacity for passion and that his simplicity doesn't
know its own strength."

There was no mistaking the sincerity of that murmur. "She has felt it,"
d'Alcacer said to himself with absolute certitude. He wondered when,
where, h