ence. The unremitting trample of the waves, there on
the right, made for level-headedness actually if a little
mercilessly--so he thought.

"I don't wish to be guilty of taking Mrs. Frayling's name in vain a
second time," he went on--"you've pulled me up, and quite rightly, for
doing so once already--but depend upon it, she enjoyed her ball every
morsel as much as you did. In respect of the minor delights of existence,
she slumbers not nor sleeps, our perenially charming and skilful
Henrietta."

"You think she enjoyed it too? I am glad."

Then after an interval of silence, her whole figure alert, her
speech eager:

"See there--see there, Colonel Sahib--yes, far, far out to sea--aren't
those the lights of a ship?"

"Yes," he answered--"creeping westward--bound for Toulon, most likely, or
possibly for Marseilles."

And he would have moved forward. But Damaris unaccountably lingered.
Carteret waited a good three to four minutes to suit her convenience; but
the delay told on him. The night and hour down here by the shore, on the
confines of the silent town, were too full of poetry, too full of
suggestion, of the fine-drawn excitement of things which had been and
might not impossibly again be. It was dangerous to loiter, and in such
company, though waves might beat out a constant reminder with merciless
pertinacity upon the beach.

"Come, dear witch, come," he at last urged her. "We still have more than
a mile to go and a pretty stiff hill to climb. It grows late, you will be
abominably tired to-morrow. Why this fascination for a passing steamer,
probably some unromantic, villainously dirty old tramp too, you would not
condescend to look at by daylight."

"Because,"--Damaris began. She came nearer to him, her expression
strangely agitated.--"Oh! Colonel Sahib, if I could only be sure it
wasn't treacherous to tell you!"

"Tell me what? One of the many things it would never occur to you to
confide to Mrs. Frayling?" he said, trying to treat her evident emotion
lightly, to laugh it off.

"To Henrietta? Of course not. It would be unpardonable, hateful to tell
Henrietta."

She flushed, her face looking, for the moment, dark from excess of
colour.

"You are the only person I could possibly tell."

Carteret moved aside a few steps. He too felt strangely agitated. Wild
ideas, ideas of unholy aspect, presented themselves to him--ideas, again,
beyond words entrancing and sweet. He fought with both alike, honestly,
m