moment Fate had intervened,
had sent two human puppets to change the atmosphere.

She had really a sense of Fate upon her as she shook the sand from her
skirt. And the voice of the slowly approaching sea sounded in her ears
like the voice of the inevitable.

What must be must be.

The lemon in the sky was fast fading. The gold was dying away from the
edges of the clouds. The long lines of surf mingled together in a
blur of tangled whiteness. She looked for a moment into the gathering
dimness, and she felt a menace in it; she heard a menace in the cry of
the tides. And within herself she seemed to be aware of a menace.

"It's all there in us, every bit of it!" she said to herself. "That's
the horrible thing. It doesn't come upon us. It's in us."

And she said to Craven:

"Come!"

It was rapidly getting dark. The ground was uneven and rough, the sand
loose and crumbling.

"Do take my arm!" he said, but rather coldly, with constraint.

She hesitated, then took it. And the feeling of his arm, which was
strong and muscular, brought back to her that strange desire to use him
as a refuge.

Somewhat as Lady Sellingworth had thought of Seymour Portman, Beryl Van
Tuyn thought of Craven, who would certainly not have enjoyed knowledge
of it.

When they had scrambled down to the road, and saw the bright eyes of the
car staring at them from the edge of the marshes, she dropped his arm.

"How Adela Sellingworth would have enjoyed all this if she had been here
to-day instead of me!" she said.

"Lady Sellingworth!" said Craven, as if startled. "What made you think
of her just then?"

"I don't know. Stop a moment!"

She stood very still.

"I believe she has come back to London," she said. "Perhaps she sent the
thought to me from Berkeley Square. How long has she been away?"

"About five weeks, I should think."

"Would you be glad if she were back?"

"It would make very little difference to me," he said in a casual voice.
"Now put on your coat."

He helped her into the car, and they drove away from the sands and the
links, from the sea and their mood by the sea.

They drove through the darkness towards London, Lady Sellingworth and
Arabian.

CHAPTER IV

On the following day Miss Van Tuyn, remembering her feeling at Camber in
the twilight, went to the telephone and called up Number 18A, Berkeley
Square. The solemn voice of a butler--she knew at once a butler was
speaking--replied inquiring her business.