And, as they watched, it crept quickly along the blue-enamelled plain. It swallowed up the southern cliffs of Guernsey. Its creeping nose was level with the tall Doyle column. It crept on and on, till Castle Cornet disappeared and Peter Port was lost to sight. On and on—Jethou was gone, and bit by bit the long green and gold slopes of Herm were conquered, and its long white spear of sand ran out of the low white cloud. And still on, till all the outlying rocks and islands vanished, and where had been the glow and colour of life was nothing now but that strange pall-like cloud.

The blue of the sea in front had whitened, and suddenly the sentinel rocks at the tail of Brecqhou disappeared, and the white cloud came sweeping towards the watchers on the rock by Tintageu.

"We're in for it too," said Graeme, hastily emptying his kettle and packing up the tea-things. "Seems to me we'd better get ashore."

But the cloud was on them, soft films of gauzy mist with the sun still bright overhead. Then quickly-rolling folds of dense white cloud blotted out everything but the path on which they stood. The gorse and blue-bells and sea-pinks at their feet drooped suddenly wan and colourless, as though stricken with mortal sickness, and wept sad tears. They stood bewildered, while the pallid folds grew thicker and thicker, lit from above with a strange spectral glare, and coiling about them like the trailing garments of an army of ghosts. From the unseen abysses all round came the growl and wash of wave on rock and shingle, from the cliff above Pegane came the frightened bleat of a lamb, and an invisible gull went squawking over their heads on his way inland.

With an instinct for safer quarters, Miss Penny had started off towards the path which led precariously across the narrow neck to the mainland. The neck itself, with white clouds of mist billowing on either side, and streaming raggedly across the path, looked fearsome enough. She gave a startled cry and stood still.

"Stay here!" said Graeme to Margaret. "Don't move an inch!" and he felt his way, foot by foot, towards the causeway.

And Margaret, who had been regarding it all simply as a curious experience, felt suddenly very lonely and not very safe.

She heard him speak to Miss Penny, but she could not see two feet in front of her.

Then, after what seemed a long time, she heard above her—

"Miss Brandt? Margaret? Oh, good God!"—and there was in his voice a note that was new to her. Sharp and strident with keenest anxiety, it set a sudden fire in her heart, for it was for her.

"I am here, Mr. Graeme," she cried, and he came plunging down to her through the dripping gorse and bracken.

"Thank God!" he said fervently. "Why ever did you move?"

"I have not stirred."

"I must have got wrong. It is blinding. It will be safest to wait here, I think. Will you hold on to my arm?"

And as she slipped her hand through it she felt it trembling—the arm that had always been so strong and steadfast in her service—and she knew that this too was for her.

"Where is Hennie?" she asked.

"She's all right. I made her sit down among the bushes and told her she'd surely get smashed if she moved."

It was a good half-hour before the cloud drew off and they saw Guernsey, Herm, and Jethou sparkling in the sun once more.

Then they crossed the narrow path over the neck, and Margaret was glad they had not attempted it in the fog.

They picked up Miss Penny, damp but cheerful, and went home. For everything was dripping, and the pleasures of camping out were over for that day, but there were fires about that all the fogs that ever had been could not begin to extinguish.

XV

As the girls sat basking in the window-seat for a few minutes after breakfast one morning, they surprised a private conversation between their cavalier and Master Johnnie Vautrin. Graeme, with his back to them, sat smoking on the low stone wall. Johnnie was, as usual, bunched up in the hedge opposite.

"Well, Johnnie?" they heard. "Seen any crows this morning?"

"Ouaie!"

"How many then, you wretched little croaker?"

"J'anneveu deu et j'anneveu troy."

"Ah now, it's not polite—as I've told you before—to talk to an uneducated foreigner, in a language he does not understand. How many, in such English as you have attained to, and what did they mean according to your wizardry?"

"Pergui, you, too, are not polite! Your words are like this"—measuring off an expanding half yard in the air,—"they are all wind."

"Smart boy! How many crows did you see this morning?"

"First I saw two and then I saw three."

"Two and three make five. Croaker! Five crows mean someone's going to be sick. And which way did they go this time?"

"Noh, noh! First it wass two, and when they had gone then it wass three more."

"I see. And two black crows—what might they mean now?"

"Two crows they mean good luck."

"Clever boy! Continue! Three black crows mean——?"

"Three crows—they mean a marrying,—ouaie, Dame!"

"Ah, a marrying! That's better! That is very much better. It strikes me, Johnnie, that two lucky crows are worth twopence, and three marrying crows are worth threepence. And as luck would have it I've got exactly five pennies in my pocket. Catch, bearer of good tidings! Here you are—one, two, three, four, five! Well caught! Is it going to keep fine?" and Marielihou stopped licking herself to look at Graeme, and then went on again with an air of,—"I could tell you things if I would, but it's not worth while,"—in her ugly green eyes.

"I don' think," said Johnnie, jumping at the chance of ill news.

"You don't, you little rascal? Here, give me back my hard-earned pence! You're a little humbug."

"What's Johnnie been up to now?" asked Miss Penny, as she came out into the open.

"He's giving me lessons in necromancy and the black art of crows. He declines to pledge his honour on the continued brightness of the day."

"Oh, Johnnie! And we're going to Brecqhou!"

"I cann'd help."

"But you might send us on our way rejoicing."

"Gimme six pennies an' I will say it will be fine."

"I'm beginning to think you're of a grasping disposition, Johnnie. If you don't take care you'll die rich."

"Go'zamin, I wu'n't mind."

Then Graeme came out again, with the hamper he had had packed in the kitchen under his own supervision, and their cloaks, which, thanks to Johnnie, he had picked off the nails in the passage, and they set off for Havre Gosselin and Brecqhou.

XVI

"You'll not forget to come back for us about eight," Graeme shouted to the boatmen, as they pushed off from the fretted black rock on which their passengers had just made precarious landing.

"Nossir!" and they pulled away to their fishing.

"If it should be a fine sunset," he explained to the ladies, "the view of the Sark cliffs from Beleme there, opposite the Gouliots, is one of the finest sights in the island."

The place they had landed was a rough ledge on the south side just under the Pente-a-Fouaille, some distance past the Pirates' Cave, and the ascent, though steep, was not so difficult as it looked. Graeme, however, in his capacity of chaperon, insisted on convoying them separately to the top—whereby he got holding Margaret's hand for the space of sixty pulse-beats—and then went down again for the cloaks and provisions.

Brecqhou, at the moment, was uninhabited. Its late occupant had thrown up his post suddenly, and gone to live on Sark with his wife, and a new caretaker had not yet been appointed. So they went straight to the house, deposited their belongings in the sitting-room, and then started out for a long ramble round the island.

First they struck west to Le Neste, and scrambled among the rough rocks of the Point, stepping cautiously over the gulls' nests which lay thick all about, some with eggs and some with young.

The wonders of the sea-gardens in the rock-pools of Moie Batarde, and the entrancing views of Herm and Jethou and Guernsey, gleaming across the sapphire sea, with a magnificent range of snowy cloud-mountain breasting slowly up the deep blue of the sky behind, and looking solid enough to sit on, as Miss Penny said, absorbed them till midday.

Then they returned to the house, lit a fire of dried gorse, filled their kettle at the well and set it to boil, and carried out a table and chairs, for eating indoors was out of the question with such beneficence of sunshine inviting them to the open.

All the afternoon was occupied with the wonders of the Creux-a-Vaches, with its bold scarps and rounded slopes draped with ferns and enamelled with flowers, and the crannies and indentations of the northern side of the island. They sat for a time on Beleme cliff entranced with the wonderful view of the bold western headlands of Sark, unrolled before them like a gigantic panorama from Bec-du-Nez to the Moie de Bretagne,—a sight the like of which one might travel many thousand miles and still not equal. And they promised themselves a still finer view when the setting sun washed every cliff and crag and cranny with living gold.

But as they turned to tramp through the ragwort and bracken towards the house, intent on cups of tea, the sight of the western sky gave them sudden start. The solid range of snow-white cloud-mountains had climbed the heavens half-way to the zenith, and was stretching thin white streamers still further afield. And its base in the west had grown dark and threatening, with pallid wisps of cloud scudding up it like flying scouts bearing ill tidings.

"Wind, I'm afraid," said Graeme, "and maybe thunder—"

And as he spoke a zigzag flash ripped open the dark screen, and a crackling peal came rattling over the lead-coloured sea and bellowed past them in long-drawn reverberations.

"Johnnie was right after all, the little monkey."

"I'm sorry now I didn't give him that sixpence," said Miss Penny.

"I don't suppose it would have made much difference—except to Johnnie. However, I hope it will soon blow over. Good thing we've got a shelter, and we can enjoy our tea while the elements settle matters among themselves outside."

The storm broke over them before the kettle boiled. The rain thrashed the house fiercely under the impulse of a wild south-west wind, which grew wilder every minute, and the thunder bellowed about them as though the very heavens were cracking.

"This is a trifle rough on inoffensive pilgrims," said Graeme. "I'm really sorry to have got you into it."

"You didn't do it on purpose, did you, Mr. Graeme?" asked Miss Penny, with pointed emphasis.

"I did not. I devoutly wish you were both safe home in the Rue Lucas."

"All in good time. Meanwhile, we might be worse off, and this tea is going to be excellent. Margaret, my child, do you know that tea under these conditions is infinitely preferable to tea in Melgrave Square, under any conditions whatsoever?"

"It is certainly a change," said Margaret.

"And a very decided improvement. It's what some of my young friends would call 'just awfully jolly decent,'" said Miss Penny.

"We're not out of the wood—that is to say, the island—yet," suggested Graeme.

"Or we shouldn't be here enjoying ourselves like this. Brecqhou is sheer delight."

"On a fine day," said Margaret quietly.

"Or in a thunderstorm," asserted Miss Penny militantly. But Margaret would not fight lest it should seem like casting reflections on their present estate.

The thunder rolled over the wide waters with a majesty of utterance novel to their unaccustomed city ears, the rain drew a storm-gray veil over everything past the well, the wind waxed into hysterical fury, tore at the roof and gables, and went shrieking on over Sark. And above the rush of wind and rain, in the short pauses between the thunder-peals, the hoarse roar of the waves along the black bastions of Brecqhou grew louder and louder in their ears.

Graeme's face grew somewhat anxious, as he stood at the window and peered westward as far as he could see, and found nothing but fury and blackness there. He had a dim recollection of hearing of outer islands such as this being cut off from the mainland for days at a time. He could imagine what the sea must be like among the tumbled rocks below. And he had seen the Race of the Gouliot in storm time once before, and doubted much if any boat would face the whirl and rush of its piled-up waters.

What on earth were they to do if the men could not get across for them?

Suppose they had to pass the night there?

Good Heavens! Suppose they could not get across for days? What were they to live on?—to come at once to the lowest but most pressing necessity of the situation?

They had weather-proof shelter. Firing they could procure from the interior woodwork of the house and outbuildings. And they had a small amount of tea and sugar, and half a tin of condensed milk, and rather more than half of the day's provisions, since they had contemplated high tea before embarking again. He determined that, if the storm showed no signs of abating, the high tea must be a low one, since its constituents might possibly have to serve for to-morrow's breakfast as well.

Both girls, their own perceptions strung tight by the electric state of matters outside, noticed the touch of anxiety in his face as he turned from the window, but both declined to show it.

"How's her head, Captain?" asked Miss Penny jovially.

"Dead on to a lee shore," he answered in her own humour. "But the anchorage is good and we're not likely to drift."

"Come! That's something to be thankful for, under the circumstances. Brecqhou banging broadside on to that big black Gouliot rock would be a most unpleasant experience. How about the sunset cliffs of Sark?"

"They're very much under a cloud. I'm afraid we must pass them for this time and choose a better. The cliffs indeed are there, but the sun is much a-wanting."

"Hamlet without the ghost of a father or even a sun."

"Truly!" And looking at Margaret, he said earnestly, "I can't tell you how sorry I am it has turned out this way."

"But it is no fault of yours, Mr. Graeme. No one could possibly have foreseen such a breakdown in the weather, with such a glorious morning as we had."

"After all, I'm not at all sure it isn't all Mr. Graeme's fault," said Miss Penny musingly.

"As how?" he asked.

"Didn't you stop me giving Johnnie Vautrin six demanded pennies to keep it fine all day?"

"I discouraged the imposition, certainly. But I don't suppose Johnnie could have done much—except with your sixpence."

"He's a queer clever boy, is Johnnie. He certainly said it wasn't going to keep fine."

"Little humbug!"

"Yet you gave him fivepence for seeing—or saying he saw—two crows and three crows, because two crows mean good luck and three crows mean——"

"You talk as if you believed his nonsense, Hennie," broke in Margaret.

"Perhaps I do—to some extent. He certainly declined to pledge himself to a fine day, and it remains to be seen if the rest of his—"

"—Humbug," suggested Graeme.

"We'll say predictions, since we're in a superstitious land,—come true. I shouldn't be a bit surprised. Thunderstorms are not, as a rule, deadly, and it is conceivable that they may, at times, even be means of grace. Would you mind piling some more gorse on that fire, Mr. Graeme? A counter-illumination is cheerful when the heavens without are all black and blazing. What a joke it would be if we had to stop here all night!"—she said it with intention, and Graeme understood and blessed her.

"We'll hope it won't come to that," he said, as lightly as he could make it. "But, if it should, we could make ourselves fairly comfortable. Robinson Crusoes up to date!"

"No—Swiss Family Robinsons!" was Margaret's quota to the lightening of gloom. "The way everything turned up just when that interesting family required it struck me as marvellous even when I was a child."

"You always were of an acutely enquiring—not to say doubting—disposition, my dear, ever since I knew you," said Miss Penny.

"I always liked to get at the true truth of things, and humbug always annoyed me."

"No wonder you found Mr. Pixley a trial, dear," said Miss Penny.

"You don't mean to cast stones of doubt at that shining pillar of the law and society, Miss Penny?" said Graeme, tempted to enlarge on so congenial a subject.

"Mr. Pixley does not appeal to me—nor I to him. I like him just as much as he likes me. And that's just that much,"—with a snap of the fingers.

"I'm afraid you and I are in the same boat," said Graeme enjoyably.

"I shouldn't be a bit surprised,—and for the same reason. We both like—"

"What shall we do for provisions, Mr. Graeme, if the storm continues?" asked Margaret, and Miss Penny smiled knowingly.

"I suggest husbanding those we have. It can't surely last long."

"Mrs. Carre was telling us the other night that once no steamer could get to Sark from Guernsey for three weeks," chirped Miss Penny. "If a steamer couldn't get to Sark, how should a small boat get to Brecqhou—Q.E.D.?"

"Gracious!" cried Margaret in dismay.

"Mr. Graeme would have to catch rabbits for us—and fish. And I believe there are potatoes growing outside there. Our clothing will be in rags, Meg. Mr. Graeme will be a wild man of the woods, and all our portraits will appear in the illustrated papers. The Outcasts of Brecqhou. Marooned on an Uninhabited Island. Three Weeks Alone."

"I'm off for a look round," said Graeme. "If that boat should be waiting for us, somewhere down below, it would be too stupid for us to be waiting for it up here," and he turned up his coat collar and pulled his cap over his brows.

"You'll get soaked," said Margaret. "Please take this, it will help a little," and she jumped up and thrust her golfing cloak into his hands. He seemed about to refuse, then thanked her hastily, and threw it over his shoulders and went out.

The wind caught him and whirled him along towards Beleme cliffs. He tacked to the south and made a slant for the place where they had landed. As soon as he was out of sight of the house he drew the hood of the cloak over his head and rejoiced in it.

To be wearing her cloak brought Margaret appreciably nearer. Possibly that hood had even been over her head, had touched her shining hair, her fair soft cheek. He pressed it to his face, to his lips, and the hot blood danced in his veins at his temerity. The gale bellowed outside and drove him staggering, but inside the hood was the uplifting warmth and glow of personal contact with the beloved. Her very mantle was sacred to him. He fancied he could detect in it a subtle intimation of herself. He hugged it close, and leaned back upon the gale, and drifted towards the southern cliffs.

One glance at the black rocks below,—now hidden by the rushing fury of the surges, now outstanding gaunt and grim, with creamy cascades pouring back into the roaring welter below,—showed him how impossible it would have been for any boat to approach there.

He plunged on through the masses of dripping ragwort towards the eastern cliff, and stood absorbed by the grim fury of the Gouliot Race. The driven waves split on the western point of Brecqhou and came rocketing along the ragged black rocks on either side in wild bursts of foam. The Gouliot Passage was roaring with the noise of many waters, and boiling and seething like a gigantic pot. The sea was white with beaten spume for half a mile each way, and up through the tumbling marbled surface great black coils of water came writhing and bubbling from their tribulation on the hidden rocks below. The black fangs of the Gouliots were grimmer than ever. The long line of scoured granite cliffs on either side looked like great bald-headed eagles peering out hungrily for their prey.

There were no boats at the anchorage in Havre Gosselin. He learned afterwards that they had all run to the shelter of Creux Harbour on the other side of the island. He breasted the gale and headed for the house.

"I'm very much afraid we're stuck for the night," he said, as they looked up enquiringly on his entrance. "There's not a sign of a boat, and I'm quite sure no boat could face that sea. Sark looks like an outcast island—the very end of the world."

"Then we'll make ourselves comfortable here," said Miss Penny. "We began to fear you'd been blown over the cliffs. Is there plenty of wood in the house?"

"I'll go and get some more," and he came back with a great armful of broken driftwood, and went again for as much gorse as he could carry in a rude wooden fork he found near the stack.

"You must be soaked through and through," said Margaret.

"Bit damp, but your cloak was a great help," and he piled gorse and chunks of wood on the fire till its roaring almost drowned the noise of the storm outside.

XVII

"Well, I call this absolutely ripping," said Miss Penny exuberantly, as they sat by the fire of many-coloured flames, after a slender cup of tea and as hearty a meal as Graeme would allow them in view of possible contingencies. "Do please smoke, Mr. Graeme. It just needs a whiff of tobacco to complete our enjoyment."

"Sark," she added, leaning back with her hands clasped behind her head, "when no one knows you're there, is just heavenly. No letters, no telegrams, no intrusion of the commonplace outside world! Those are distinctly heavenly attributes, you know—"

It was truly extraordinary how, with nothing more than a very general intention thereto, she played into his hands at times. Here now was a very simple question he had been wanting to put to Miss Brandt for days past. For the answer to it might shed light in several directions. But he had been loth to force matters, and had quietly waited such opportunity as might arise in a natural way without undue obtrusion of the doubt that was in his mind.

"'Peace—perfect peace!' as Adam Black used to sigh," he said. "And by the way"—turning to Margaret—"speaking of letters, I have often wondered at times if you ever received two that I sent you concerning Lady Elspeth—just about the time she was called away to Scotland?"

She looked back at him with surprise, and his question was answered and his doubt solved before ever she opened her lips.

"About Lady Elspeth? No,—I certainly never got them."

"H'm!" he nodded thoughtfully. "The first I feared might have gone astray through some stupidity of the post-office. But the second I dropped into your letter-box myself. Moreover—"

"I never got them,"—with a charming touch of colour.

"Moreover——?" said Miss Penny expectantly, with a dancing light in her eyes.

"Well," he said, after a pause, "to tell you the whole story, Mr. Pixley assured me that you had had them and had handed them on to him."

"Mr. Pixley said that?" and Margaret sat up, with very much more than a touch of colour in her face now. In fact it was militantly red and vastly indignant.

"Yes. I—well, I called upon him at his office just to find out if—well, if you were ill or anything like that, you know. And among other interesting information he told me that, and cut off my head with his glasses and threw my remains out into the street;" at which Margaret smiled through her indignation.

"Mr. Pixley," said Miss Penny emphatically, "is a—a Johnnie Vautrin on a larger scale. Had he any other interesting items of information for you, Mr. Graeme?"

"Well—yes, he had. But I can estimate them now at their proper value, and it can rest there."

"It was Mr. Black's enthusiasm for Sark at that Whitefriars' dinner that put it into my head when—when we were wondering where to go. I remember now," said Margaret.

"It was Black's enthusiasm for Sark that put it into my head when I was wondering where to go," said Graeme.

"There you are, you see," said Miss Penny. "I knew you must have had some common inspiration."

"I am greatly indebted to Black. He's one of the finest fellows I know. He's done me more than one good turn, but I shall always count Sark his chiefest achievement," said Graeme heartily.

XVIII

The wind howled round the house, and whuffled in the chimney, and sent spurts of sweet-scented smoke to mingle with the fuller flavour of Graeme's tobacco. The walls were bare plaster, discoloured with age and careless usage. The chairs were common kitchen chairs, and the table a plain deal one. But the driftwood burned with flames whose forked tongues sang silently but eloquently of wanderings under many skies, of rainbow isles in sunny seas, of vivid golden days and the black wonders of tropic nights, of storms and calms, and all the untold mysteries of the pitiless sea.

But to two at least of the party—and perhaps even to three—that bare room was radiant beyond any they had ever known.

Orange and amber lightening into sunshine, purple into heliotrope, tender greens and lucent blues, burning crimson and fiery red, were the flames of the driftwood, and in these surely the imagination may find its happiest auguries. For if the dancing flames, out of their chastened knowledge, sang only of the past, in the minds of their watchers they were singing of futures brighter and more glowing than anything the past had ever known. And so, to two at least of them,—and perhaps to three,—never surely was there room so radiant as that bare room in that empty house on Brecqhou.

Miss Penny had the high endowment of a large heart, a wide imagination, and sentiment sufficient for a high-class girls' boarding-school.

She found herself for the moment out of place, yet she could not remove herself without too obvious an intention. She did the next best thing. She settled herself on her chair in a corner, slipped off her shoes, sat on her feet, and went to sleep.

Margaret, indeed, glanced at her suspiciously once or twice, without moving her head by so much as a hair's-breadth. But she seemed really and truly asleep, and for a moment Margaret was amazed that anyone could think of sleep in that enchanted room. But then she remembered that it was different—Hennie was Hennie, and she was she, and it was for her that the crystal ball of life had opened of a sudden and shown the radiance within.

How long they sat in silence before the rainbow fire she never knew.

Hennie was snoring gently—purring as one might say—in the most genuinely ingenuous fashion.

Graeme, in the riot of happy possibilities evoked by the disclosure of Mr. Pixley's perfidy, would have been content to sit there for ever, since Margaret was at his side. It was enough to know that she was there. He did not need to turn his head to enjoy the sight of her with gross material vision. Every tight-strung fibre of his being told him of her nearness, in ways compared with which sight and sound and touch are gross and feeble travesties of communication. Their spirits surely reached out and touched in that silent communion before the rainbow fire.

There were many things he wanted to ask her now. But they could wait, they could wait. The Doubting Castles he had built in his despair had had no foundations. He was building anew already, and now with rosy hope and golden faith, and the topstones of his building mingled with the stars.

He woke of a sudden to a sense of lack of consideration for her in his own enjoyment. Doubtless she was tired out, and was only kept from following Miss Penny's example by his crass stupidity in sitting there in that stolid fashion.

"Pray forgive me!" he said, as he rose quietly. "You must be tired, too. I will take the other room and you can join Miss Penny."

"I'm not the least tired. I never felt more awake in my life. Surely the wind has fallen."

He went to the door and opened it and looked out.

"It is only a lull. It will probably blow up again stronger than ever," and as he turned he found her at his elbow.

"Let us go outside," she said, and he could have taken her into his arms. Instead, he tiptoed across the room and got her cloak, and placed it on her shoulders with a new, vast sense of proprietorship.

He knew just how she felt. Even that room of rare delights was not large enough just then for her and for him. The whole wide world, and the illimitable heights of the heavens, could scarce contain that which was in them. Their hearts were full, and that which was in them was that of which God is the ultimate perfection. And in their ears, in the gaps of the storm, was the roaring thunder of the great white waves as they tore along the black sides of Brecqhou.

"Tell me more about those letters," she said briefly. "What did you write?"

"I wrote, nominally, to inform you of Lady Elspeth's sudden call to Scotland, but actually to tell you how sorely I regretted the sudden break in our acquaintance which had become to me so very great a delight."

"And when you got no answer?"

"I waited and waited, and then I had a sudden fear that you might be ill. And to satisfy myself I called on Mr. Pixley at his office. He told me you were quite well, that you had had my letters, and had handed them to him."

"Anything more?"

"Yes,—he said you were shortly to marry his son."

"That is what he wished,—and that is why I am here."

"Thank God! Then I may tell you, Margaret. I had been building castles and you were mistress of them all and of my whole heart. When Mr. Pixley knocked them into dust I came here to fight it out by myself, and a black time I had. Then God, in His goodness, put it into your heart to come too. Will you marry me, Margaret?"

"Yes, Jock."

And there, in the lull of the gale, in the lee of the lonely house on Brecqhou, they plighted their troth with no more need of feeble words, for their hearts had gone out to one another.

And all along the gaunt black rocks the great waves, which a moment before had been growling in dull agony, roared a mighty chorus of delight, and rolled it up the sloping seams of Longue Pointe, and flashed it on in thunderous bursts of foam from Bec-du-Nez to L'Etac.

And Miss Henrietta Penny, awakening about this time, and finding herself alone, laughed happily to herself, and sighed just once, and said from her heart, "God bless them!"—and did not go to sleep again, though to look at her you would never have known it, save for the fact that she no longer purred in her sleep,—for the woman has yet to be born who ever pleaded guilty to actual snoring.

XIX

Graeme slept that night just as much as might have been expected under the circumstances, and that was not one wink. Nevertheless, when morning came, he felt as strong and joyous as a young god. New life had come to him in the night, and he felt equal to the conquering of worlds. For love is life, and the strength and the joy of it.

He was out with the dawn, to a gray rushing morning full of the sounds of sea and wind. He drew a canful of water from the well, and had such a wash as no soap and a handkerchief would permit of. Then he drew another canful and left it outside the door of the ladies' room, and strode off to Beleme to see if the boats had got back to their anchorage. But the little bay was a scene of storm and strife, a wild confusion of raging seas and stubborn rocks, the fruits of the conflict flying up the cliffs in spongy gouts of spume, and dappling the waters far and wide with fantasies of troubled marbling,—and there was not a boat to be seen.

But the sight of the great white seas roaring up the Sark headlands, as far as he could see on either hand, was one never to be forgotten. It was worth the price they had paid, even though it spelt a further term of captivity, and he turned back to his duties with that new glad glow in his heart which was no longer simply hope but the full and gracious assurance of loftiest attainment.

He had seen potatoes growing in a plot near the house. So, after lighting a fire in the kitchen and setting the kettle to boil, he rooted about till he found the remains of a spade and set himself to unaccustomed labours.

When Miss Penny came out of her room, freshfaced and comely coiffured, she found a ring of potatoes roasting in the ashes and the kettle boiling, and Graeme came in, bright-eyed and wind-whipped, wiping his hands on a very damp handkerchief.

"I am so glad, Mr. Graeme," she said, with sparkling eyes and face, and hearty outstretched hand.

"Margaret has told you?"

"Of course Margaret has told me. Am I not her keeper, and haven't I been hoping for this since ever I saw you?"

"That is very good of you. I thought, perhaps—"

"Thought it might take me by surprise, I suppose—and perhaps that I might take it badly? Not a bit! It fulfils my very highest hopes. And I can assure you you have got a prize. There are not many girls like Margaret Brandt."

"Don't I know it? I have known it from the very first time I met her—at that blessed Whitefriars' dinner."

"I think you will make her very happy."

"I promise you I will do my very best."

And then Margaret came into the kitchen and knew what was toward.

She looked like a queen and a princess and a goddess all in one, with a flood of happy colour in her face and a glad glow in her eyes, and no more hint of maidenly shyness about her than was right and natural. And Miss Penny's eyes were misty of a sudden, as Graeme went quickly up to her friend, and feasted his hungry eyes on her face for a moment, and then bent and gallantly kissed her hand. For in both their faces was the great glad light that is the very light of life, and Miss Penny was wondering if, in some distant future time, it might perchance be vouchsafed to her also to attain thereto.

"I hope you both slept well," he said gaily. "I've done my best in the provisioning line. I know we've got plenty of salt, for one generally forgets it and so I always put in two packets."

"You've done splendidly," said Miss Penny, tying up tea in a piece of muslin and dropping it into the kettle.

"I'd have tried for a rabbit, but I wasn't sure if either of you could skin it—"

"Ugh! Don't mention it!"

"And I knew I couldn't, so we'll have to put up with roasted potatoes and imagine the rabbit. I've been told they do that in some parts of Ireland,—hang up a bit of bacon in a corner and point at it with the potato and so imagine the flavour."

"Potatoes are excellent faring—when there's nothing better to be had," said Miss Penny, rooting in the basket. "However, here are three of yesterday's sandwiches, slightly faded, and some biscuits—in good condition, thanks to the tin. Come, we shan't absolutely starve!"

And they enjoyed that meal—two of them, at all events, and perhaps three—as they had never enjoyed a meal before.

"And the weather?" asked Margaret.

"The blessed weather is just as it was; perhaps even a bit more so,—the most glorious weather that ever was on land or sea!"

"But——" said Margaret, smiling at his effervescence.

"No, I'm afraid it can't last very much longer, and potatoes and salt I know would begin to pall in time. After breakfast you shall see the grandest sight of your lives,—and for the rest, we will live in hope."



XX

And, after all, they saw what they had specially come to see—a sunset from Beleme cliff.

For the day remained gray and boisterous until late in the afternoon. They had lunched—with less exuberance than they had breakfasted—on potatoes and salt and a thin medicinal-tasting decoction made from breakfast's tea-leaves; they were looking forward with no undue eagerness to potato dinner without even the palliative of medicinal tea; and even Miss Penny acknowledged that, choice being offered her, she would give the preference to some other vegetable for a week to come;—when, of a sudden, the gray veil of the west opened slowly, like the lifting of an iron curtain, and let the light behind shine through.

And the light was as they could imagine the light of heaven—a pure lucent yellow as of the early primrose, but diaphanous and almost transparent, as though this, which seemed to them light, was itself in reality but an outer veil hiding the still greater glory behind. The curtain lifted but a span, and the lower rim of it curved in a gentle arch from the middle of Guernsey to the filmy line of Alderney. All below the sharp-cut rim was the sea of heavenly primrose, with here and there a floating purple island edged with gold. All above was sombre plum-colour flushed with rose, the edges fraying in the wind, and floating in thin rosy streamers up the dark sky above.

The sun, larger than they had ever seen him in their lives, dropped gently like a great brass shield from behind the dark curtain into the sea of primrose light, and the primrose flushed with crimson over Guernsey and with tender green and blue over Alderney.

They hastened away to Beleme cliff, and then they saw what they had hoped to see, and more;—the mighty granite frontlets of Sark all washed with living gold—- shining from their long conflict with the waves, and gleaming, every one, like a jewel,—from Bec-du-Nez to Moie de Bretagne. And, out in the dimness, behind which lay Jersey, there suddenly appeared the perfect circle of a rainbow such as none of them had ever dreamed of—a perfect orb of the living colours of the Promise—resting bodily on the dark sea like a gigantic iridescent soap-bubble, glowing and pulsing and throbbing under the level beams of the setting sun.

"Wonderful!" murmured Margaret.

"I never saw more than half a bow before," whispered Miss Penny.

"Nor I," said Graeme. "But then, you see, nothing ever was as it is now. Things happened last night."

At which Miss Penny smiled and murmured, "Of course! That accounts for everything. The whole world is changed."

And they watched and watched, in breathless admiration, first the cliffs, and then the bow, and then the sun, and then the cliffs and bow again, till the last tiny rim of the sun sank behind the dark line of Herm, and the bow went out with a snap, and the cliffs in front grew gray and sank back into their sleep, as the shadows crept up out of the sea.

And, presently, the primrose sea in the clouds lost its transparent softness and flushed with rose and carmine. The tender greens and blues in the north deepened, and the sky above glowed crimson right into the far east. And the sea below was like a ripe plum with a rippling bloom upon it, and then it answered to the glow "above and became like burnished copper. And over it, from the south end of Sark, came a dancing white sail, at sight of which Graeme leaped to his feet.

"The show is over," he cried, "and here comes your highnesses' carriage."

"I wouldn't have missed it for anything," said Margaret softly, with a rapt face still.

"It was worth living on potatoes for a month for," said Miss Penny. "All the same, I hope Mrs. Carre will have some dinner for us when we get home."

The boat was heading for the Pente-a-Fouaille where they had landed the day before, and they hurried to meet it, Graeme full of misgivings as to the embarkation, for the waves were still roaring up the rocks in bursts of foam, though the wind had fallen somewhat.

But the boatmen knew their business, and had brought an extra hand for its safe accomplishment. They dropped the sail and pulled round a corner of the black rock. Then, while two of them kept the boat from destruction, the other stood and Graeme dropped the girls one by one into his arms, and was a very thankful man when he tumbled in himself, all in a heap, and wiped the big drops of sweat from his brow.

A stroke or two with the oars and they were plunging back through the hissing white caps, but not, as he had expected, to Havre Gosselin.

"Where to?" he shouted to the blue-guernseyed stalwart nearest him.

"Grande Greve. We couldn' beach in Havre Gosselin, and mebbe the leddies wouldn' like to climb the ladders," with a grin at the leddies.

"Not much!" said Miss Penny. "Margaret, my dear, prepare yourself! I'm going to be sick if this goes on much longer."

But before she had time to be sick they had rounded the shoulder of Port-es-Saies, and their boat's nose ran up the soft sand of a low tide in Grande Greve, and the green waves came curling exultantly in over the stern. The men leaped out and hauled bravely, and in a moment the girls were ashore.

"Couldn' get back nohow last night, sir. 'Twould a bin as much as our lives were worth. Hope ye didn' starve," said the spokesman with another genial grin.

"No, we didn't expect you. We dug potatoes and cooked them. Here you are, and thanks for coming as soon as you could," and, from their smiling faces, their reward without doubt covered not only that which they had actually done but that also which they had unwittingly helped to do.

The boat shoved off and made for its own anchorage, and Graeme led the girls up the toilsome path to the Coupee.

It was after nine when they reached the cottage, and the first thing they saw was Johnnie Vautrin sitting in the hedge opposite, with Marielihou licking her lips alongside.

"I just seen seven crows," cried Johnnie gleefully.

"Little rascal! You dream crows," said Graeme, whose desires at the moment ran to something more palatable and satisfying.

"And what do seven crows mean, Johnnie?" asked Margaret.

"Seven crows means everything's oll right!"

"Clever boy! You see just what you want to see," said Graeme, and then Mrs. Carre appeared at the door of the cottage.

"Ah then, here you are!" she said, with a large welcoming smile. "And the dinner I haf been keeping for you for an hour an' more."

"You're a good angel, Mrs. Carre," said Graeme gratefully. "We are a bit late, aren't we? I hope you've put yesterday's dinner and to-day's together. We've had nothing to eat to speak of for a month. What did you think when we never turned up last night?"

"Oh, but I knew you would be all right. There iss a house on Brecqhou, and there iss watter, and you had things to eat, and it was better on Brecqhou last night than on the watter."

"It was," said Graeme heartily, and sped off up the garden for a much-needed wash and brush-up.

XXI

"Now what would I like myself if I was in their place?" asked Miss Penny of herself, while she rectified the omissions of the last two days in the matter of Nature's cravings for a more varied diet than Brecqhou afforded.

"Why, to be alone and free from the observation of Miss Hennie Penny," she promptly answered herself, and as promptly acted on it.

"Meg, my dear, I am aweary. I am not accustomed to playing Swiss Family Robinson. By your leave, Monsieur and Mademoiselle, I will wish you good-night and pleasant dreams," and she went off into the bedroom.

"May she have as tactful a chaperone when her own time comes," said Graeme, with a smile. "Do you think you would sleep better if you went to bed at once or if you had a little walk first?"

"I am not the least bit sleepy," said Margaret.

"Then a stroll will do you good," and they went out into the night. And Miss Penny, as she heard their feet on the cobbles, smiled to herself a little wistfully.

Such a night of stars! The gale had swept the heavens and thinned the upper air till the Milky Way was a wide white track strewn thick with jewels, and the greater lights shone large and close. As they sauntered in silence towards La Tour, their faces towards the stars among which their full hearts were ranging in glorious companionship, one of the lesser lights silently loosed its hold and dropped slowly from zenith to horizon, in a fiery groove that momentarily eclipsed all else.

And while Graeme was still pressing to his heart the soft arm that lay in his, in silent enjoyment of the sight and at their sharing it, another star swung loose, and another, and another, till the glittering vault seemed laced with fiery trails and they stood in rapt admiration.

"What a sight!" said Margaret softly. "I have never seen anything like that before."

"Nor I. The very stars rejoice with us.... You have made me the happiest man in all the world this day, Margaret. I can hardly believe it is real ..."

"I am real," she said, with a low warm little laugh. "And I am happy. Kiss me, Jock!" and he kissed her there under the falling stars, and she him, in a way that left no doubt as to what was in them, and the evening incense of the honeysuckle and hawthorn wafted fragrance all about them.

There was still a tender touch of colour in the sky over the western sea as they came out on the Eperquerie.

"When are you free, Margaret?" he asked,—the first word since they kissed in the lane.

"I am twenty-one on New Year's Day."

"Six whole months! How can we possibly wait all that time?"

"Why should we?" she asked delightfully.

"Undoubtedly—why should we?" he said, on fire with her charming readiness. "You are probably by this time ringed with legal pains and penalties, but they are all less than nothing."

"What could they do?"

"I believe they clap the male malefactor into prison——"

"I will go with you."

"I'm not sure if there are any married cells."

"And how long would they keep us there?"

"Till, in their opinion, I had purged my contempt, I believe."

"And how long would that be?"

"I've no idea. It probably depends on circumstances. Do you know that, until Lady Elspeth told me, I had rib idea that you had any money. It was rather a blow to me."

"I don't see why."

"But I told our old friend that if—well, if, you understand—I should insist on everything you had being settled on yourself."

"You and Lady Elspeth seem to have discussed matters pretty freely," she said, with a laugh.

"She's the dearest old lady in the world, and delights in mothering me. She got me in a corner that afternoon, and taxed me with coming to her house for reasons other than simply to see herself——"

"And you——?"

"I had to own up, of course, and then she crushed me by telling me that you were an heiress, and that Mr. Pixley probably had views of his own concerning you."

"Which he had, but they happened not to coincide with mine, and so I came to Sark."

"Happy day! I see you yet, standing in the hedge by the Red House, and I believing you a vision."

"I could hardly believe my eyes either. You seemed to come jumping right out of the sky."

"I jumped right into heaven—the highest jump that ever was made."

"I was a bit put out at first, you know——"

"I know you were."

"I thought you had learned we were coming, and had followed us here."

"Whereas——" he laughed.

"Exactly!"



PART THE FIFTH

I

"But yes, I can marry you in the church," said the Vicar, blowing out smoke, and laughing enjoyably across at Graeme, who sat in another garden chair under the big trees in front of the Vicarage.

"In spite of the fact that we are aliens?"

"Oh, it is not so bad as that. We ab-sorbed you by conquest and so you are really a part of us. We are all one family now."

"And such a marriage would be perfectly legal and unassailable?"

"I shall marry you more firmly than if you were married in Cant-er-bury Cath-edral," laughed the Vicar.

"That should suffice. But why more firmly? How improve on perfection?"

"I will tell you," said the Vicar, with increased enjoyment, as he leaned forward and tapped Graeme's knee. "It is this way.—If you are married in Cant-er-bury Cath-edral you can be divorced,—n'est-ce pas? Oui! Eh bien!—If you are married in my church of Sark you can never be divorced. C'est ca! It is the old Norman law."

"We will be married in your church of Sark," said Graeme, with conviction.

"That is right. I shall marry you so that you shall never be able to get away from one another."

"Please God, we'll never want to!"

"Ah yes! Of course. C'est ca!"

II

"We have never had a case of the kind, as far as I know. Certainly not in my time," said the Seigneur, smiling quizzically across the tea-table at Graeme. "But you gentlemen of the pen are allowed a certain amount of license in such matters, are you not?"

"We sometimes take it, anyhow. But one likes to stick as close to fact as possible."

They were sitting in the shady corner in front of the Seigneurie, with four dogs basking in the sun beyond, and beyond them the shaven lawns and motionless trees, the leafy green tunnel that led to the lane, and a lovely glimpse into the enclosed gardens through the ancient gateway whose stones had known the saints of old.

Graeme had put a certain proposition to the Lord of the Island, nominally in connection with the story he was busy upon, but in reality of vital concern to the larger story in which Margaret and he were writing the history of their lives.

"Sark, you know, is a portion of the British Empire, or perhaps I should say the British Empire belongs to Sark, but we are not under British law. We are a law unto ourselves here," said the Seigneur.

"And the authority of a British Court would carry no weight with you? In the case I have put to you, if the Court of Chancery ordered you to surrender the young lady, you would refuse to do so?"

"I could refuse to do so. What I actually would do might depend on circumstances."

"I see," said Graeme musingly, and decided that the Seigneur's goodwill was worthy of every possible cultivation both by himself and Margaret. For he did not look like one who would help a friend into trouble.

III

"I've been thinking a good deal about it, and I really don't see any reason why we should wait,"—said Graeme, looking at Margaret.

And Miss Penny said "Hear! Hear!" so energetically that Margaret laughed merrily.

"We are both of one mind in the matter, an life is all too short at its longest, and most especially when it offers you all its very best with both hands—"

"Hear! Hear!" said Miss Penny.

"And time is fleeting," concluded the orator.

"And that kettle is boiling over again," and Miss Penny jumped up and ran to the rescue.

They were spending a long day in Grande Greve—the spot that had special claims upon their liking since their landing there after that memorable trip to Brecqhou. They had brought a full day's rations, prepared with solicitous discrimination by Graeme himself, and a kettle, and a great round tin can of fresh water from the well at Dixcart, and a smaller one of milk.

So high were their spirits that they had even scoffed at Johnnie Vautrin's intimation that he had seen a magpie that morning, and it had flown over their house. But magpie or no magpie they were bent on enjoyment, and they left Johnnie and Marielihou muttering black spells into the hawthorn hedge, and went off with the dogs down the scented lanes, through the valley where the blue-bells draped the hillsides in such masses that they walked as it were between a blue heaven and a blue earth, and so by the meadow-paths to the Coupee.

Their descent of the rough path down the side of the Coupee with all this impedimenta had not been without incident, but eventually every thing and person had been got to the bottom in safety.

Then, while the dogs raced in the lip of the tide and Scamp filled the bay with his barkings, the girls had disappeared among the tumbled rocks under the cliff, and Graeme had sought seclusion at the other end of the bay. And presently they had met again on the gleaming stretch of sand; he in orthodox tight-fitting dark-blue elastic web which set off his long limbs and broad shoulders to great advantage; Hennie Penny in pale blue, her somewhat plump figure redeemed by the merry face which recognised all its owner's deficiencies and more than made up for them all; Margaret, tall, slim, shapely, revealing fresh graces with every movement,—a sea-goddess in pale pink—a sight to set the heart of a marble statue plunging with delight.

Hennie Penny persisted in wearing an unbecoming cap like a sponge-bag, which subjected her to comment.

Margaret's crowning glory was coiled in thick plaits on top of her head, and if it got wet it got wet and she heeded it not.

Both girls had draped themselves in long towels for the walk down to the water, and Graeme's heart sang with joy at the surpassing beauty of this radiant girl who had given her heart and herself and her life into his keeping.

Dainty clothing counts for much in a girl's appearance. Not every girl shows to advantage in bathing costume. But when she does, she knows it, and the hearts of men are her stepping-stones.

Hennie Penny was a cautious swimmer. She preferred depths soundable at any moment by the dropping of a foot, and if the foot did not instantly touch bottom she fell into a panic and screamed, which added not a little to the hilarity of their bathes.

Margaret and Graeme, however, were both at home in the water. They delighted to set their faces to the open and breast steadily out to sea, rejoicing in the conquest of the waves. But he always watched over her with solicitous care, for there are currents, and cross-currents, and treacherous undertows round those coasts, and the wary swimmer is the wiser man.

And the dogs always swam with them, Punch lunging boldly ahead with the ease and grace of a seal, looking round now and again to see if they were coming, and turning the moment they turned. While Scamp, away in the rear, thrashed along spasmodically, with a yelp for every stroke, but would not be left out of it. The sight of his anxious little face and twisting nose more than once set Margaret laughing, so that she had to turn on her back and float till she got over it, greatly to the small dog's satisfaction.

Full of life and the mighty joy of it, they found the going unusually easy that day. The water was like the kiss of new life, crisp, tonic, vitalising. There was no more than a breath of wind, no more than a ruffle on the backs of the long blue rollers that came sweeping slowly in out of the West.

Graeme, as he glanced round in his long side-strokes at the lovely eager face gemmed with sparkling water-jewels, took full deep breaths of delight and gratitude to the All-Goodness that had vouchsafed him such a prize.

The kiss of the life-giving water had induced a tender flush of colour in the soft white neck, as though the pink of her bathing-suit had spread upwards. He could see the pulsing blue veins in neck and temple as she rose to her stroke. A tiny tendril of water-darkened hair lifted and fell on her neck like a filament of seaweed on a polished rock. Her eyes were very bright, and seemed larger than usual with the strenuous joy of it all. The wonder of her beauty absorbed him. He could hardly turn his face from it. He would have been content to go on swimming so for ever.

But, glancing past the sweet face one time, he saw that they had gone farther than he knew, and Scamp had turned long since and was yelping towards the shore.

"Better turn now," he said quietly, and she floated for a moment's rest, then turned and they headed for the shore, and Punch passed them noiselessly.

They ploughed along in good cheer for a time, and then, of a sudden, it seemed to him that they were making but poor progress.

He fixed his eyes on a rock on the shore and swam steadily on.

They had been opposite it. Twenty strokes, and the rock, instead of facing them, had swung slowly to the north. They were making less than no progress. They were drifting. They were in the grip of a current that was carrying them towards the black fangs of Pointe la Joue.

A cold sweat broke out among the sea-drops on his brow. Pointe la Joue is an ill place to land, even if they could make it, and the chances were that the current would carry them past.

How to tell her without undue upsetting? A panic might bring disaster.

He looked round at her. The bright face was high and resolute. She was not aware of the danger, but from that look on her face he did not think she would go to pieces when he told her.

The rock he had been watching stood now at an angle to their course.

"Are you tired, Meg?" he asked.

"I'm all right."

"Turn on your back and float for a minute or two," and he set the example, and Punch saw and came slipping back to them.

"We're in a cross current," he said quietly. "And we're making no way—"

"I know. I was watching a rock on the shore. What's the best thing to do?"

"We'll rest for a few minutes and then go with the tide round Pointe la Joue. We can land in Vermandes. You're not cold, are you?"

"Not a bit."

When he lifted his head the Coupee was shortened to a span, and the southern headland folded over it as he looked. They were drifting as fast as a man could walk at his fastest. They were abreast the black rocks of La Joue.

"Now, dearest, a little spurt and we shall be in the slack. If you get tired, tell me," and they struck out vigorously on a shoreward slant in the direction they were going.

There should have been a backwater round the corner of Vermandes. He had counted on it. And there was one, but so swift was the rush of the tide round the out-jutting rocks of La Joue, that for some minutes, as they battled with the rough edge of it, it was touch and go with them.

At a word from her his arm would be at her service. But she fought bravely on, and could admire Punch's graceful action even then. The waves smacked her rudely in the face. Great writhing coils came belching up from below and burst under her chin and almost swamped her. One, as strong as a snake, rose suddenly under her, flung her off her stroke, rolled her over, made her for a moment feel utterly helpless.

"Jock!"

He had been watching her closely. His arm flashed out in front of her.

"Grip!" and she hung on to it and it felt like a bar of steel.

"Now!"—when she had recovered herself somewhat. "Grip the top of my suit."—She hooked her fingers into it and he struck out through the turmoil.

It was a tough little fight. She struck out vigorously behind to help him. And, though the losing of the fight might mean tragedy and two white bodies ragging forlornly along the black teeth of Little Sark, she still had time to notice the mighty play of muscles in his back and arms, and the swelling veins in his sunburnt neck, and the crisp rippled hair above, and she rejoiced mightily in him. And—while possible deaths lurked all about them—her soul grew large within her at thought of the brave heart in front, and the strenuous will, and the shapely body, and the powerful muscles—all battling for her—all hers—and she theirs. What matter if they were beaten, if they but went out together! What matter Death so long as he did not divide them! So uplifted was she with the joy of him.

And then, with a final wrestle, they were in slack water, and she loosed her hold and struck out alongside him.

And presently he was helping her carefully up a seamed black rock, and the hand she gripped was shaking now, and she knew it was not for himself.

"Thank God!" said Graeme fervently, as he sank down heavily beside her, and panted while the water ran out of them, and Punch scrambled up and lay quietly alongside. "Meg,—we were in peril."

"Jock," she said jerkily, for her heart was going now quicker than usual, "I do not believe I would have minded—if we'd gone together."

"Ay—together, but, God be thanked, it did not come to that!"

They sat in silence for a time, finding themselves, while the green seas swelled up to their feet, and sank out of sight below, and their rock was laced with cascades of creamy foam.

"How shall we get back?" asked Margaret at last. "Hennie will be in desperation. She will think we are drowned."

"We can climb the head and round into Grande Greve, but it would be pretty rough on the feet. Or we can wait till the tide turns and swim in again—"

"When will it turn?"

"It's full at noon," he said, studying the waters in front. "But how that affects matters here none but a Sarkman could say. Tides here are a law unto themselves, like the people."

"How would that do?" asked Margaret, as a black boat came slowly round the rocks from Les Fontaines, sculled by an elderly fisherman.

"It is old Billy Mollet after his lobster-pots," and he stood up and coo-eed to the new-comer, and waved his arms till Billy saw them and stared hard and then turned leisurely their way.

"Guyablle!" said the old man, as he drew in. "What you doin' there now?"

"Got carried out of Grande Greve by a current, Mr. Mollet. Will you take us back in your boat?"

"Ay, ay!" and he brought the boat as near to the rock as he dared, and his weather-stained old eyes settled hypnotically on the fairest burden his old tub had ever carried, as Graeme handed her carefully down and helped her to spring into the dancing craft, and then sprang in himself with bleeding feet and shins, while Punch leaped lightly after him and crawled under a thwart.

"Ye must ha' been well out for tide to catch ye," said Billy, with no eyes for anything but the vision in clinging pink.

"Yes, we were too far out and couldn't get back."

"Tide runs round them rocks."

He dropped his oar into the rowlock and Graeme took the other, and in five minutes they were speeding across the sands of Grande Greve—Margaret to cover, Graeme to his pocket for Billy's reward.

Miss Penny had a driftwood fire roaring among the rocks, and the kettle was boiling.

"Where on earth have you two been?" she cried, at sight of Margaret skipping over the stones to her dressing-room, and got only the wave of a white arm in reply.

And presently Graeme came along in easy piratical costume of shirt and trousers and red sash, and sat down and lit a pipe.

"We went a bit farther than we intended," he explained, but did not tell her how nearly they had gone out of bounds altogether.

"You'll enjoy a cup of tea. You look as if you'd been working hard."

"There is a bit of a current round that point."

"Ah, you should follow a good example and keep within touch of the bottom. Here you are, Meg—fresh made for every customer. Help yourself, Mr. Graeme. I've had mine, I couldn't wait. Tea never tastes so good as when you're half full of salt-water, and I got right out of my depth once and swallowed tons. I screamed to you two to come and save me, but you never paid the slightest attention, and for all you cared I might have been drowned five times over."

"One would have been quite once too many," said Graeme, holding out his cup. "For then you couldn't have lighted that fire and made this tea. And I'm half inclined to think we wouldn't be enjoying it a quarter so much if a little blue corpse lay out there on the shining sand, and we'd had to turn to and make it ourselves."

"Horrible!" said Miss Penny, with a little shiver. "With your little blue corpses! It's all very well to joke about it, but I assure you, for a minute or so, I thought I was done for. The bottom seemed to have sunk, and I was just going after it when my foot came on a rock and that helped me to kick ashore."

"A narrow escape," said Graeme, with a sympathetic wag of the head. "You've no right to risk your life that way. We still need you. What do you say to being bridesmaid at a Sark wedding?"

"It is the hope of my life," said Miss Penny, sparkling like Mars in a clear evening sky.

"I really don't see any reason why we should wait"—said Graeme, looking very earnestly at Margaret, and behind the look was the thought, born of what they had just come through together, that life spills many a full cup before the thirsty lips have tasted it. "What do you say, Margaret?"

And she, knowing well what was in him, and being of the same mind, said, "I am ready, Jock. When you will."

"I'll call on the Vicar to-morrow," he said joyfully. "It would be such a pity to disappoint the hope of Miss Penny's life,"—as that young person came back with the merry kettle.

"I am indebted to you," said Hennie Penny. "What about dresses, Meg?"

IV

It was that same night, as they were sauntering home from a starlight ramble, that they came on Johnnie Vautrin crouched in the hedge with Marielihou, and Marielihou had her hind leg bound up in a piece of white rag.

"Hello, Johnnie! What's the matter with Marielihou?" asked Graeme. And Marielihou turned her malevolent yellow-green eyes on him and looked curses.

"Goderabetin! She've got hurt."

"Oh! How was that?"

"I d'n know. Wisht I knowed who done it;" and just then, as luck would have it, old Tom Hamon came sauntering along in the gloaming, smoking a contemplative pipe with long slow puffs.

And at sight of him Marielihou ruffled and swelled to twice her size, and raked up most horrible and blood-curdling oaths from away down in her inside into her black throat, and spat them out at him, as he came up, in a fusillade that sounded like ripraps, and her eyes flamed baleful fires.

"Cuss away, y'ould witch!" said old Tom, with a grin through his pipe-stem. "How's the leg?" and Marielihou with a final volley disappeared among the bushes, and Johnnie crawled after her.

"What on earth does he mean?" whispered Meg.

"Mr. Hamon has an idea that Marielihou and old Mme. Vautrin have something in common. In fact I believe he goes so far as to say that they are one and the same. Black magic, you know,—witchcraft, and all that kind of thing."

"How horrid!"

"B'en!" chuckled old Tom again. "You find out how 'tis with th' old witch. We know how 'tis with Marrlyou. 'Twere the silver bullet did it. If sh' 'adn't jumped 'twould ha' gone through 'er 'ead," and he went off chuckling through his pipe-stem.

And the next evening, as they were sauntering slowly through the darkening lanes to the windmill, to see the life-lights flash out all round the horizon, it happened that they met the doctor just turning out of his gate.

"Hello, doctor! How's old Mme. Vautrin to-day?" asked Graeme.

"She's going on all right," said the doctor, with a touch of surprise. "There seems a quite unusual amount of interest in that old lady all of a sudden. How is it?"

"What is it's wrong with her?"

And the doctor eyed him curiously for a moment, and then said, "Well, she says she hurt her leg ormering, slipped on a rock and got the hook in it. But—Well, it's a bad leg anyway, and she won't go ormering or anything else for a good long time to come."

Which matter, in the light of old Tom Hamon's silver bullets and evident knowledge of Marielihou's injury, left them all very much puzzled, though, as Graeme acknowledged, there might be nothing in it after all.

V

It was just after the second lesson, the following Sunday, that the Vicar stood up, tall and stately, his youthful face below the gray hair all alight with the enjoyment of this unusual break in the even tenour of his way, and soared into unaccustomed and very carefully enunciated English.

"I pub-lish thee Banns of Marrr-i-ache between John Cor-rie Graeme of Lonn-donn and Mar-garet Brandt of Lonn-donn. If any of you know cause, or just im-ped-i-ment, why these two pair-sons should not be joined to-gether in holy matri-mony, ye are to de-clare it. This is thee first time of as-king."

Margaret and Miss Penny and Graeme heard it from their back seat among the school-children, and found it good.

There were not very many visitors there. Such as there were felt a momentary surprise at two English people choosing to get married in Sark, though, if it had been put to them, they must have confessed that there was no lovelier place in the world to be married in. They also wondered what kind of people they were.

Some few of the habitants knew them and turned and grinned encouragingly, though even they were not quite certain in their own minds as to which of the two ladies was the one who was to be married. The children all smiled as a matter of course and of nature.

And Margaret felt no shadow of regret at thought of the gauds and fripperies of a fashionable wedding which would not be hers. In John Graeme's true love she had the kernel. The rest was of small account to her.

And that little church of Sark, plain walled and bare of ornament, always exerted upon her a most profoundly deepening and uplifting influence. It epitomised the life of the remote little island. Here its people were baptized, confirmed, married, buried.

And here and there, on the otherwise naked walls, was a white marble tablet to the memory of some who had gone down to the sea and never returned. And these she had studied and mused upon with emotion the first time she went there, for surely none could read them without being deeply touched.

"A la memoire de John William Falle, age de 37 ans, et de son fils William Slowley Falle, age de 17 ans, Fils et petit fils de William Falle, Ecr. de Beau Regard, Sercq. Qui furent noyes 20'eme jour d'Avril 1903, durant la traversee de Guernsey a Sercq. 'Ta voie a ete par la mer et tes sentiers dans les grosses eaux.'"

"A la memoire de Pierre Le Pelley, Ecuyer, Seigneur de Serk, noye pres la Pointe du Nez, dans une Tempete, le 13 Mars, 1839, age de 40 ans. Son corps n'a pas ete retrouve; mais la mer rendra ses morts."

"In memory of Eugene Grut Victor Cachemaille, second son of the Revd. J.L.V. Cachemaille, Vicar of Sark. Born Jan. 14, 1840, and lost at sea in command of the Ariel, which left London for Sydney, Feby. 1872, and was heard of no more. 'He was not, for God took him.'"

Yes, she would sooner be married in that solemn little church than in Westminster Abbey, for there there would be mighty distractions, while here there would be nought to come between her and God and the true man to whom she was giving herself with a full heart.

VI

"This is the second time of asking."

"This is the third time of asking."

And so far none had discovered any just cause or impediment why John Corrie Graeme and Margaret Brandt should not in due course be joined together in holy matrimony.

On the occasion of the third asking, however, one in the congregation, a casual visitor and in no way personally concerned in the matter, found it of sufficient interest to make mention of it in a letter home, and so unwittingly played his little part in the story.

Meanwhile, the glorious summer days between the askings were golden days of ever-increasing delight to Graeme and Margaret, and of rich enjoyment to Miss Penny.

Never was there more complaisant chaperone than Hennie Penny. For, you see, she took no little credit to herself for having helped to bring about their happiness, and the very least she could do was to further it in every way in her power.

In her own quaint way she enjoyed their "lovering," as she called it, almost as much as they did themselves. And that being so, they would have felt it selfish on their part to deprive her of any portion of her rightful share in it.

And that was how Miss Hennie Penny became so very knowing in such matters, and also why she lived in a state of perpetual amazement at the change that had come over her friend.

For Margaret, affianced to the man who had her whole heart, was a very different being from Margaret harassed and worried by Mr. Pixley and his schemes for her possession and possessions.

Charming and beautiful as she had always been, this new Margaret was to the old as a radiant butterfly to its chrysalis,—as the glory of the opening flower to the promise of the bud. And Hennie Penny's quickened intelligence, projecting itself into the future, could fathom heights and depths and greater glories still to come.

But even now, when they went along the lanes festooned as for a wedding with honeysuckle and wild roses, the faces of those they met lighted up at sight of them, and few but turned to look after them when they had passed, and Miss Penny's truthful soul took none of the silent homage to herself.

Margaret was supremely happy. She could not have hidden it if she had tried. She made no attempt to do so. She gave herself up to the rapturous enjoyment of their "lovering" with all the naive abandon of a delighted child. The little ties and tapes and conventions, which trammel more or less all but the very simplest lives, fell from her, snapped by the expansion of her love-exalted soul. She was back to the simple elementals. She loved Jock, Jock loved her. They were happy as the day was long. Why on earth should they not show it? If she had had her way she would have had every soul in all the world as happy as they two were.

"I feel like an elderly nurse with two very young children," said Miss Penny to the pair of exuberants.

"O Wise Nurse! We shall never be so young again," laughed Graeme.

"But we are never going to grow any older inside," laughed Margaret.

"Never!" said Graeme, with the conviction of absolute knowledge, and carolled softly—

"O it's good to be young in the days of one's youth! Yes, in truth and in truth, It's the very best thing in the world to be young, To be young, to be young in one's youth."

"Very apropos!" said Miss Penny. "Did you make it on the spot?"

"In anticipation," he laughed. "It's the opening song in a very charming comic opera I once committed. But it was too good for the present frivolous age, and so I have to perform it myself."

"I would like to give all the children on the island—" began Margaret.

"All the other children—" corrected Graeme.

"All the children—including Hennie and you and me—the jolliest feast they've ever had in their lives, the day we are married."

"Of course we will, and the doctor shall get in an extra supply of palliatives. They shall look back in after years and say—'Do you remember that feast we had when the loveliest of all the angels came down from heaven and was married to that delightful Englishman?'—Briton, I ought to say! I do wish our dear old Lady Elspeth could be here. How she would enjoy it!—'That feast,' they will say, 'when we were all ill for a month after and the doctor died of overwork.' They will date back to it as ancient peoples did to the Flood. It will be a Great White Stone Day to generations to come. Let us hope there will be no new white stones over yonder"—nodding in the direction of the churchyard—"in commemoration of that great day."

"We will draw the line short of that," said Margaret seriously.

"We'll give them all the gache they can eat—home-made, and such as their constitutions are accustomed to,—and fruit and frivolities from Guernsey. I'll go across the Saturday before—"

"We will go across," said Margaret.

"Of course we will. We older children will go, and we'll take Nurse with us,"—with a bow towards Hennie Penny,—"and we'll make a day of it, and have ices again at that place in the Arcade, and then we'll go round the shops and clear them out for the benefit of Sark."

"Ripping!" said Miss Penny.

VII

They had already made one trip to Guernsey, crossing by the early Saturday boat and returning the same evening.

But that was a strictly business affair.

"We're feeling frightfully fossilised at having bought nothing, except what we absolutely needed, for nearly a month," said Miss Penny. "From that point of view I should imagine the Garden of Eden may have been just a trifle slow—"

"Ah, you see, Mother Eve hadn't had the advantages of a superior education," said Graeme.

"And there are some fripperies we simply must have," said Miss Penny, "even for a runaway wedding like this. You see, when we decided to come here we had no idea how much farther we were going, and so we couldn't possibly provide. Of course if we had known you were here—"

At which Margaret laughed.

"You would have provided accordingly," said Graeme. "Well, you must put all the blame on to Mr. Pixley. I wonder what he would say if he knew all about it."

"He would use language unadapted to prayer-meetings and public platforms," said Miss Penny. "He can, you know, when he tries hard."

"I imagined so. It will be rather amusing to see what he'll do when he finds out."

"He'll do the very nastiest thing that is open to him, whatever that is, and poor Mrs. Pixley will have an exceedingly bad time. And he'll probably have a fit on his own account."

"Oh, we can hardly expect him to be so kind as all that—"

"The only one I'm sorry for is Charles Svendt. He's really not half a bad sort, in his way, you know," said Miss Penny.

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid, under the circumstances, I can't squeeze out any sympathy even for Charles Svendt."

Arrived at St. Peter Port, the ladies permitted him to attend them to the door of the largest drapery establishment they could find, and then told him he was at liberty to go and enjoy himself for a couple of hours.

"Two hours? Good Heavens! What can you want in there for two hours?"

"Usual thing!" sparkled Miss Penny. "Tablecloths!"—with which cryptic utterance he had to be satisfied.

"And where do we meet again—if ever?"

"Hauteville House—Victor Hugo's. It's part of your honeymoon—a bit on account."

"And whereabouts is it?"

"No idea. If we can find it, you can. Au revoir!"

He went first to get his hair cut, since the practice of the tonsorial art in Sark is still in the bowl-and-scissors stage.

Then he sought out a lawyer of repute, whose name he had got from the Vicar, and gave him instructions for the drawing of a brief but comprehensive deed of settlement of all Margaret's portion on herself absolutely and entirely. While this important document was being engrossed, he sought out the Rector of St. Peter Port, in George Place, and in a short but pleasant interview was accepted as tenant of the whole of the Red House in Sark for the month of July, with the option of a longer stay if he chose.

Then back to the lawyer's, where he signed his deed, paid the fees, and took it away with him.

After that, to fill in the time occupied elsewhere by the purchase of mythical tablecloths, he rambled up and down the quaint foreign-flavoured streets till he found a jeweller's shop of size, in the Arcade, and decided, after careful inspection from the outside, that it would answer all requirements.

For he had a ring and half a ring to buy for Margaret, and he thought he would buy one also for Hennie Penny, as a pleasant reminder of their good days in Sark.

So utterly unconventional had their proceedings been, so thoroughly had the spirit of the remote little island possessed them, and so all-sufficient had they been to one another, that the thought of an engagement ring had troubled his mind as little as the lack of it had troubled Margaret's. But the absolute necessity of a wedding ring had reminded him of his lapse, and now he would repair it on a scale remotely commensurate with his feelings. Remotely, because, if his pocket had borne any relation to his feelings, he would have bought up the whole shop and lavished its contents upon her, though he knew that the simple golden circlet would far outweigh all else in her mind.

He was waiting placidly for them in the shade of the dark trees of Hauteville, when they came panting up the steep way, flushed with victory and the joys of purchase after long abstinence.

"Well, has the proprietor of that big shop retired with a competence?" he asked, as he threw away the end of his cigar.

"Can you lend us our boat-fares home?" gasped Miss Penny.

"So bad as all that? I can't say yet. I've not begun my own purchases. We'll see when I'm through. If I'm cleaned out too we'll offer to work our passages."

"You can pawn your watch. Meg and I haven't got one between us. We left them at home on purpose."

"Thoughtful of you. Now let us into the treasure-house."

They enjoyed the wonders of Hauteville immensely,—objectively, the wonderful carved work and the tapestries, the china and the furniture,—the odd little bedroom with the bed on the floor, so that the Master could roll out to his work at any moment of inspiration, and the huge balconies, and the glass eyrie on the roof whence he surveyed his wide horizons, and where, above the world, he worked;—and subjectively, the whole quaint flavour and austere literary atmosphere of the place.

"No wonder he produced masterpieces," said Graeme, delighting in it all. "The view alone is an inspiration."

Then he took them up to Old Government House for lunch and a rest in the garden, and then away to the Arcade to the jeweller's shop, which proved adequate to all his demands;—for Margaret, a half-hoop of diamonds which the jeweller, with an air of sincerity, assured them were as fine stones as he had ever seen in the course of a long and prosperous career. Which ring Margaret would thenceforth value before all her others, though in the simple matter of intrinsic worth her jewel-case could beat it hollow.—And a plain gold circlet which, when she got it, would be more precious to her than all the rest put together.—And for Miss Penny, in spite of her protestations, a handsome signet ring which, when cornered, she chose in preference to a more feminine jewel, and which was left to be engraved with her family crest and motto.

"I have never adopted the habit of rings," she said, as they drifted towards the ice-shop. "Chiefly, perhaps, because I never had any worth wearing. But I've always thought I would like to wear a crest signet. I shall prize this, Mr. Graeme, as the very greatest treasure I have—"

"Until someone gives you a plain gold one, Hennie, and that will put all the rest into the shade," said Margaret.

"Ah!" said Miss Penny.

VIII

Their journey home—that is, to Sark—that day was not entirely without incident. For when they got down to the quay, Sark had disappeared completely, and Herm and Jethou were no more than wan ghosts of their natural selves, in a dense white mist.

"Ah-ha! Here is our old friend of Tintageu," said Graeme jovially. "Well, I must confess to bearing him no ill-feeling—if he doesn't land us on a rock this time. Going, captain?"

"Oh yess, we go. I think it will lift," said Captain Bichard.

"Don't run us on a rock anyway."

"I won'd run you on no rock. I coult smell my way across;" and they started, feeling their way cautiously past Castle Cornet, into the open, where black jaws lined with white teeth lie in wait for the unwary.

And just as they got to the south of Jethou they saw a sight the like of which none of them had ever seen before, nor, from the exclamations about them, had any of the rest.

The mist in front was like a soft white curtain, and upon it, straight ahead of their bows, appeared suddenly a mighty silver bow, not a rainbow, because there was no rain and so there were no colours. But, like the bow they had seen from Beleme Cliff, this also was a perfect circle, all but a tiny segment where it appeared to rest upon the sea, and its only colour was a dazzling silvery sheen which waxed as they watched it in breathless silence. Then it waned, bit by bit, till at last it was gone, and only the white mist curtain remained.

"How very lovely!" murmured Margaret.

"A good omen for certain," said Miss Penny. "Even Johnnie Vautrin couldn't make any ill news out of that. It was your wedding arch, Meg."

"Well, that's the first time I ever saw a white rainbow," said Graeme to the captain.

"First time I ever saw one myself, sir."

"Not very common then."

"Never heard of one before."

"We're evidently in luck."

"Mebbe, but we won't crow till we've made the Creux. Kip your eyes skinned, lads!"

"Ay, ay, zur!" and the crew lined the bulwarks on their knees, with their chins on the rail, their eyes peering into the puzzling veil in front, and their ears alert for the wash of wave on rock.

They were going slow, hardly moving in fact at times, waiting to pick up their course as any possible mark should come into view, with muttered comments from the puzzled lookouts, and an occasional growl of dissent from views propounded by the younger members, while the passengers all stood in silent discomfort as though ready for contingencies.

For the tides and currents in those seas are strange and gruesome. Even as they lay, apparently motionless, with the sea as smooth as oil all round them, there came a sudden turmoil, and they were in a wild race of waters, with bubbling coils and swirls and frothing gouts of foam from rocks that lay fathoms deep below.

"La Grune," growled one of the keen-eyed watchers, and was discounted at once by doubtful growls from the rest.

Then a black ledge loomed through the mist and faded again before they had more than a glimpse of it.

"Les Dents," ventured one.

"Hautes Boues,"—so divergent were their views.

A sound of waters and another dark loom of rock.

"Sercul," said one.

"L'Etac," said another.

Then the engine bell tanged sharply, and they went ahead. The captain had seen more than the rest and knew where he was, and they all breathed more freely. And presently, with a wide berth to the dangers of the south-east coast, they nosed slowly in again, picked up La Conchee without dissentients, and so into Creux Harbour in a way that seemed to Graeme little short of marvellous.

"Fogs at sea are beastly—there is no other word for it—but all the same I'm glad we saw the Wedding-Bow," said Miss Penny.

IX

They had fixed on the Wednesday following the last time of asking, for their wedding-day. But when they came to discuss the matter with Mrs. Carre, it was found that an alteration would be necessary.

"Ah, but that will not do," said their landlady, who was in high feather at so unique an event taking place in her cottage, so to speak, though, as a matter of fact, the festivities were to be carried out within the ampler precincts of the Red House. "You see, old Mr. Hamon he iss died very sudden—"

"Not old Tom surely?" asked Graeme.

"He iss old Tom's father, and they will bury him on Wednesday, and you would not like to be married the sem day—"

"No, indeed," said Margaret. "We will wait."

"And, you see, all them that would be coming to the wedding would be at the funeral, for efferybody belongs to efferybody else here."

"Must be a bit awkward at times," suggested Graeme.

"Oh noh!" with a touch of airy aloofness. "I haf been at a wedding and a funeral and a baptism all in one week all among the sem people. And I was at one young man's wedding one day last year and at his funeral the same day the next week after."

"That was dreadful," said Margaret. "Do you think it would be safe to fix it for the following Wednesday, Mrs. Carre?"

"Oh yes, I think! There iss no one very sick. Mr. Hamon he wass a very old man and he died very sudden. He wass just knocking a nail in the pigsty and he drop down and died."

"Poor old man!"

"He wass very old and he wass a good man. No one ever said any harm of old Mr. Hamon."

"Then if no one else dies we'll say the following Wednesday," said Graeme. "And if—well, if anything happens to prevent it, then we must go across to Guernsey and get Mr. Lee to marry us."

"Oh, but that woult not do. We will keep them all alive till you are married. It woult neffer do to disappoint them all when we are all looking forward to it here."

"Very well then, see you all keep alive."

"And you will come to old Mr. Hamon's funeral?"

"H'm! I don't know. We'll see, Mrs. Carre. We'd sooner be at our own wedding, you know, than at anybody else's funeral."

"They woult like it iff you woult. And he was a goot old man. They tell me to ask if you woult be pleased to come."

"If they would like us to come we will come, Mrs. Carre," said Margaret.

And so it came about that instead of kneeling before the altar that Wednesday they stood by the graveside.

X

The Red House and the cottage were centres—nay, whirlpools—of mighty activities for days beforehand.

Mrs. Carre insisted on cleaning down the Red House from top to bottom for the home-coming of the bride, though, to Graeme's masculine perceptions, its panelling of polished pitch pine from floor to ceiling, in which you could see yourself as in a mirror, had always appeared the very acme of cleanliness and comfort, with the additional merit of a tendency towards churchwardly thoughts.

But when he ventured on a mild remonstrance anent the necessity for so gigantic an upsetting, Mrs. Carre laughingly said, "Ach, you are only a man. You woult neffer see"—and whirled her broom to the endangerment of his head.

For Margaret's honeymoon—that, is, such of it as she had not enjoyed before her marriage—was to consist of a change of residence from the cottage, and a walk up the garden and through the hedge of gracious Memories, to the wider—ah, how much wider!—as much wider and larger and more beautiful as wifehood at its best is wider and larger and more beautiful than maidenhood at its best—to the wider accommodation of the Red House. And Mrs. Carre was determined that it should be speckless and sweet, and fit in every way for the coming of so beautiful a bride.

She had found them a young girl, Betsy Lefevre, a niece of her own, to serve as handmaid during their occupancy of the house, but insisted herself on acting as cook and general housekeeper. Miss Penny was to reside at the cottage for a week after the wedding, but was to go up the garden to her meals, and at the end of that time she was to join them at the Red House as an honoured guest.

And the kitchen at the cottage, and the kitchen at the House, and several other kitchens in the neighbourhood, were baking gache enough apparently to feed a regiment, and as the day approached, roasts of beef and mutton, and hams and other substantial fare, were much in evidence. And the kitchens were thronged with ladies in sun-bonnets, which had originally been black but were now somewhat off-colour with age and weather, and all the ladies' faces were as full of importance as if they had been Cabinet ministers in the throes of a crisis.