. And she thought suddenly
that there was peace and rest in the grave too.

She heard him say: "Look at my sister. She isn't a bad woman by any
means. She asks me here because it's right and proper, I suppose, but
she has no use for me. There you have your shore people. I quite
understand anybody crying. I would have been gone already, only, truth
to say, I haven't any friends to go to." He added brusquely: "And you?"

She made a slight negative sign. He must have been observing her,
putting two and two together. After a pause he said simply: "When I
first came here I thought you were governess to these girls. My sister
didn't say a word about you to me."

Then Flora spoke for the first time.

"Mrs. Fyne is my best friend."

"So she is mine," he said without the slightest irony or bitterness, but
added with conviction: "That shows you what life ashore is. Much better
be out of it."

As they were approaching the cottage he was heard again as though a long
silent walk had not intervened: "But anyhow I shan't ask her anything
about you."

He stopped short and she went on alone. His last words had impressed
her. Everything he had said seemed somehow to have a special meaning
under its obvious conversational sense. Till she went in at the door of
the cottage she felt his eyes resting on her.

That is it. He had made himself felt. That girl was, one may say,
washing about with slack limbs in the ugly surf of life with no
opportunity to strike out for herself, when suddenly she had been made to
feel that there was somebody beside her in the bitter water. A most
considerable moral event for her; whether she was aware of it or not.
They met again at the one o'clock dinner. I am inclined to think that,
being a healthy girl under her frail appearance, and fast walking and
what I may call relief-crying (there are many kinds of crying) making one
hungry, she made a good meal. It was Captain Anthony who had no
appetite. His sister commented on it in a curt, businesslike manner, and
the eldest of his delightful nieces said mockingly: "You have been taking
too much exercise this morning, Uncle Roderick." The mild Uncle Roderick
turned upon her with a "What do you know about it, young lady?" so
charged with suppressed savagery that the whole round table gave one gasp
and went dumb for the rest of the meal. He took no notice whatever of
Flora de Barral. I don't think it was from prudence or any calculated