hing of drops from
the roof, and the echoing noise of the sea's wash awed her. She felt a
tightening in her throat. She swam with faster and faster strokes. The
sides of the cave loomed huge about her. The roof seemed immensely,
remotely, high. The water was dark now. It was a solemn thing to swim
through it. She began to wonder how far it was to the end of the cave.
A sudden terror seized her. Suppose, after all, that Neal was not in
the cave, suppose that she was swimming in this awful place alone. She
shouted aloud--

"Neal, Neal, Neal Ward, are you there?"

The cave echoed her cries. A thousand repetitions of the name she had
shouted came to her from above, from behind, from right, from left. The
rocks flung her words to each other, bandied them to and fro, turned
them into ridicule, turned them into thundering sounds of terror, turned
them into shrill shrieks. The frightened pigeons flew from their rocky
perches; their wings set new echoes going. Una swam forward, and,
reckless with fright now, shouted again. She heard some one rushing down
to meet her from the remote depths of the cave. The great stones rolled
and crashed under his feet with a noise like the firing of guns. Then,
amid a babel of echoes, came a shout answering her's.

"I'm coming to you, Una."

She felt the bottom with her feet. She stood upright. At the sound
of Neal's voice all her fears vanished. She could see him now. He was
stumbling down over the slippery stones which the ebb tide left bare. He
reached the water and splashed in.

"Stay where you are, you must not come any further."

"Una," he said, "dear Una, you have come to me."

She laughed merrily.

"Don't think I've come to live with you here, Neal, like a seal or a
mermaid. No, no. I've brought you something to eat. Here, now, don't
upset my little boat." She pushed the raft towards him. "Isn't it just
like the boats we used to make long ago when we were little? Oh! do you
remember how angry the salmon men were when you and Maurice stole all
the corks off their net? But I can't stay talking here, I'm getting
cold, and you, Neal, go back to dry land. What's the use of standing
there up to your knees in water? There's no sun in here to dry your
clothes afterwards. No, you must not come to me, I won't have it. You'd
get wet up to your neck. Keep quiet, now. I've something to say to you.
Maurice has gone to Glasgow to see that funny Captain Getty, who made
you both so angry the da