But you nearly blinded me. That powder stuff stings awfully.'
A neat little splash of gray led on a stone showed where the bullet had
gone. Maisie began to whimper.

'Don't,' said Dick, jumping to his feet and shaking himself. 'I'm not a
bit hurt.'

'No, but I might have killed you,' protested Maisie, the corners of her
mouth drooping. 'What should I have done then?'

'Gone home and told Mrs. Jennett.' Dick grinned at the thought; then,
softening, 'Please don't worry about it. Besides, we are wasting time.

We've got to get back to tea. I'll take the revolver for a bit.'

Maisie would have wept on the least encouragement, but Dick's
indifference, albeit his hand was shaking as he picked up the pistol,
restrained her. She lay panting on the beach while Dick methodically
bombarded the breakwater. 'Got it at last!' he exclaimed, as a lock of
weed flew from the wood.

'Let me try,' said Maisie, imperiously. 'I'm all right now.'

They fired in turns till the rickety little revolver nearly shook itself
to pieces, and Amomma the outcast--because he might blow up at any
moment--browsed in the background and wondered why stones were thrown
at him. Then they found a balk of timber floating in a pool which
was commanded by the seaward slope of Fort Keeling, and they sat down
together before this new target.

'Next holidays,' said Dick, as the now thoroughly fouled revolver kicked
wildly in his hand, 'we'll get another pistol,--central fire,--that will
carry farther.'

'There won't b any next holidays for me,' said Maisie. 'I'm going away.'

'Where to?'

'I don't know. My lawyers have written to Mrs. Jennett, and I've got to
be educated somewhere,--in France, perhaps,--I don't know where; but I
shall be glad to go away.'

'I shan't like it a bit. I suppose I shall be left. Look here, Maisie,
is it really true you're going? Then these holidays will be the last
I shall see anything of you; and I go back to school next week. I
wish----'

The young blood turned his cheeks scarlet. Maisie was picking
grass-tufts and throwing them down the slope at a yellow sea-poppy
nodding all by itself to the illimitable levels of the mud-flats and the
milk-white sea beyond.

'I wish,' she said, after a pause, 'that I could see you again sometime.

You wish that, too?'

'Yes, but it would have been better if--if--you had--shot straight over
there--down by the breakwater.'

Maisie looked with large eyes for a moment. And this was