s beams were
warm. They rose, walked round the cabins. Other ships were at
sea--destroyers and battleships, grey, low, and sinister on the
water. Then a tall bright schooner glimmered far down the channel.
Some brown fishing smacks kept together. All was very still in the
wintry sunshine of the Channel.

So they turned to walk to the stern of the boat. And Alvina's heart
suddenly contracted. She caught Ciccio's arm, as the boat rolled
gently. For there behind, behind all the sunshine, was England.
England, beyond the water, rising with ash-grey, corpse-grey cliffs,
and streaks of snow on the downs above. England, like a long,
ash-grey coffin slowly submerging. She watched it, fascinated and
terrified. It seemed to repudiate the sunshine, to remain
unilluminated, long and ash-grey and dead, with streaks of snow like
cerements. That was England! Her thoughts flew to Woodhouse, the
grey centre of it all. Home!

Her heart died within her. Never had she felt so utterly strange and
far-off. Ciccio at her side was as nothing, as spell-bound she
watched, away off, behind all the sunshine and the sea, the grey,
snow-streaked substance of England slowly receding and sinking,
submerging. She felt she could not believe it. It was like looking
at something else. What? It was like a long, ash-grey coffin,
winter, slowly submerging in the sea. England?

She turned again to the sun. But clouds and veils were already
weaving in the sky. The cold was beginning to soak in, moreover. She
sat very still for a long time, almost an eternity. And when she
looked round again there was only a bank of mist behind, beyond the
sea: a bank of mist, and a few grey, stalking ships. She must watch
for the coast of France.

And there it was already, looming up grey and amorphous, patched
with snow. It had a grey, heaped, sordid look in the November light.
She had imagined Boulogne gay and brilliant. Whereas it was more
grey and dismal than England. But not that magical, mystic, phantom
look.

The ship slowly put about, and backed into the harbour. She watched
the quay approach. Ciccio was gathering up the luggage. Then came
the first cry one ever hears: "_Porteur! Porteur!_ Want a
_porteur_?" A porter in a blouse strung the luggage on his strap,
and Ciccio and Alvina entered the crush for the exit and the
passport inspection. There was a tense, eager, frightened crowd, and
officials shouting directions in French and English. Alvina found
hersel