"Will not your honour come in? The rain is falling."

"No, Renny, no, give me my lantern again, friend, and let us examine
anew."

Both knew it to be of no avail, but physically and mentally to move
about was, at least, better than to stand still. Step by step they
scanned afresh the sand, the shingle, the rocks, the walls, to return
once more to the trace of the slender feet, leading beside the great
double track of heavy sea boots to the water's edge.

Sir Adrian knelt down and gazed at the last little imprint that seemed
to mock him with the same elusive daintiness as Molly herself, as if
he could draw from it the answer to the riddle.

Rene endeavouring to stand between his master and the driving blast
laid down his lantern too, and strove by thumping his breast
vigorously to infuse a little warmth into his numbed limbs and at the
same time to relieve his overcharged feelings.

As he paused at length, out of breath, the noise of a methodical thud
and splash of oars arose, above the tumult of the elements, very near
to them, upon their left.

Sir Adrian sprang to his feet.

"She returns, she returns," shouted Rene, capering, in the excess of
the sudden joy, and waving his lantern; then he sent forth a vigorous
hail which was instantly answered close by the shore.

"Hold up your light, your honour--ah, your honour, did I not say
it?--while I go to help Madame. Now then, you others down there,"
running to the landing spot, "make for the light!"

The keel ground upon the shingle.

"My Lady first," shouted Rene.

Some one leaped up in the boat and flung him a rope with a curse.

"The lady, ay, ay, my lad, you'd better go and catch her yourself.
There she goes," pointing enigmatically behind him with his thumb.

Sir Adrian, unable to restrain his impatience, ran forward too, and
threw the light of his lantern upon the dark figures now rising one by
one and pressing forward. Five or six men, drenched from head to foot,
swearing and grumbling; with faces pinched with cold, all lowering
with the same expression of anger and resentment and shining whitely
at him out of the confusion. He saw the emptying seats, the shipped
oars, the name _Peregrine_ in black letters upon the white paint of
the dingey; and she?... she was not there!

The revulsion of feeling was so cruel that for a while he seemed
turned to stone, even his mind becoming blank. The waves lashed in up
to his knees; he never felt them.

Rene'