abel," moaned Moira, "that wonderful bit about holding you in his
arms!"

"I always thought those letters in divorce cases were made up. But they
pale before this."

"Let me hold it. Let me read it, mine own self," said Bobby Kane.

But, to their surprise, Isabel crushed the letter in her hand. She
was laughing no longer. She glanced quickly at them all; she looked
exhausted. "No, not just now. Not just now," she stammered.

And before they could recover she had run into the house, through the
hall, up the stairs into her bedroom. Down she sat on the side of
the bed. "How vile, odious, abominable, vulgar," muttered Isabel. She
pressed her eyes with her knuckles and rocked to and fro. And again she
saw them, but not four, more like forty, laughing, sneering, jeering,
stretching out their hands while she read them William's letter. Oh,
what a loathsome thing to have done. How could she have done it! "God
forbid, my darling, that I should be a drag on your happiness." William!
Isabel pressed her face into the pillow. But she felt that even the
grave bedroom knew her for what she was, shallow, tinkling, vain...

Presently from the garden below there came voices.

"Isabel, we're all going for a bathe. Do come!"

"Come, thou wife of William!"

"Call her once before you go, call once yet!"

Isabel sat up. Now was the moment, now she must decide. Would she go
with them, or stay here and write to William. Which, which should it be?
"I must make up my mind." Oh, but how could there be any question? Of
course she would stay here and write.

"Titania!" piped Moira.

"Isa-bel?"

No, it was too difficult. "I'll--I'll go with them, and write to William
later. Some other time. Later. Not now. But I shall certainly write,"
thought Isabel hurriedly.

And, laughing, in the new way, she ran down the stairs.

8. THE VOYAGE.

The Picton boat was due to leave at half-past eleven. It was a beautiful
night, mild, starry, only when they got out of the cab and started to
walk down the Old Wharf that jutted out into the harbour, a faint wind
blowing off the water ruffled under Fenella's hat, and she put up her
hand to keep it on. It was dark on the Old Wharf, very dark; the wool
sheds, the cattle trucks, the cranes standing up so high, the little
squat railway engine, all seemed carved out of solid darkness. Here and
there on a rounded wood-pile, that was like the stalk of a huge black
mushroom, there hung a lantern, but i