om. The woman was moving towards the faintly
white edge of the sea. Hilda started to run after her, first across
smooth asphalt, and then over some sails stretched out to dry; and then
her feet sank at each step into descending ridges of loose shingle, and
she nearly fell. At length she came to firm sand, and stood still.

Sarah Gailey was now silhouetted against the pale shallows of foam that
in ever-renewed curves divided the shore from the sea. After a time, she
bent down, rose again, moved towards the water, and drew back. Hilda did
not stir. She could not bring herself to approach the lonely figure. She
felt that to go and accost Sarah Gailey would be indelicate and
inexcusable. She felt as if she were basely spying. She was completely
at a loss, and knew not how to act. But presently she discerned that the
white foam was circling round Sarah's feet, and that Sarah was standing
careless in the midst of it. And at last, timid and shaking with
agitation, she ventured nearer and nearer. And Sarah heard her on the
sand, and looked behind.

"Miss Gailey!" she appealed in a trembling voice.

Sarah made no response of any kind, and Hilda reached the edge of the
foam.

"Please, please don't stand there! You'll catch a dreadful cold, and
you've got nothing on your shoulders, either!"

"I want to make a hole in the water," said Sarah miserably. "I wanted to
make a hole in the water!"

"Please do come back with me!" Hilda implored; but she spoke
mechanically, as though saying something which she was bound to say, but
which she did not feel.

The foam capriciously receded, and Hilda, still without any effort of
her own will, stepped across the glistening, yielding sand and took
Sarah Gailey's arm. There was no resistance.

"I wanted to make a hole in the water," Sarah repeated. "But I made a
mistake. I ought to have gone to that groin over there. I knew there was
a groin near here, only it's so long since I was here. I'd forgotten
just the place."

"But what's the matter?" Hilda asked, leading her away from the sea.

She was not extremely surprised. But she was shocked into a most solemn
awe as she pressed the arm of the poor tragic woman who, but for an
accident, might have plunged off the end of the groin into water deep
enough for drowning. She did really feel humble before this creature who
had deliberately invited death; she in no way criticized her; she did
not even presume to condescend towards the hasty clu