this weather and in the bay."

"Oh, yes, it's safe enough in the calm and the bay," he answered, "but
supposing it should come on to blow and supposing you should drift
beyond the shelter of Rumball Point there, and get the rollers down on
you--why you would be drowned in five minutes. It's wicked, miss, that's
what it is."

Beatrice laughed again and went.

"She's a funny one she is," said the old man scratching his head as he
looked after her, "of all the woman folk as ever I knowed she is the
rummest. I sometimes thinks she wants to get drowned. Dash me if I
haven't half a mind to stave a hole in the bottom of that there damned
canoe, and finish it."

Beatrice reached home a little before supper time. Her first act was
to call Betty the servant and with her assistance to shift her bed and
things into the spare room. With Elizabeth she would have nothing more
to do. They had slept together since they were children, now she had
done with her. Then she went in to supper, and sat through it like a
statue, speaking no word. Her father and Elizabeth kept up a strained
conversation, but they did not speak to her, nor she to them. Elizabeth
did not even ask where she had been, nor take any notice of her change
of room.

One thing, however, Beatrice learnt. Her father was going on the Monday
to Hereford by an early train to attend a meeting of clergymen collected
to discuss the tithe question. He was to return by the last train on
the Tuesday night, that is, about midnight. Beatrice now discovered
that Elizabeth proposed to accompany him. Evidently she wished to see as
little as possible of her sister during this week of truce--possibly she
was a little afraid of her. Even Elizabeth might have a conscience.

So she should be left alone from Monday morning till Tuesday night. One
can do a good deal in forty hours.

After supper Beatrice rose and left the room, without a word, and they
were glad when she went. She frightened them with her set face and
great calm eyes. But neither spoke to the other on the subject. They had
entered into a conspiracy of silence.

Beatrice locked her door and then sat at the window lost in thought.
When once the idea of suicide has entered the mind it is apt to grow
with startling rapidity. She reviewed the whole position; she went
over all the arguments and searched the moral horizon for some feasible
avenue of escape. But she could find none that would save Geoffrey,
except this. Yes,