n she started up, alarmed at her position.

'Rain or no rain, I can stay no longer,' she said.

'Do come back,' said he, taking her hand. 'I'll return with you. My
train has gone.'

'No; I shall go on, and get a lodging in Budmouth town, if ever I reach
it.'

'It is so late that there will be no house open, except a little place
near the station where you won't care to stay. However, if you are
determined I will show you the way. I cannot leave you. It would be too
awkward for you to go there alone.'

She persisted, and they started through the twanging and spinning storm.
The sea rolled and rose so high on their left, and was so near them on
their right, that it seemed as if they were traversing its bottom like
the Children of Israel. Nothing but the frail bank of pebbles divided
them from the raging gulf without, and at every bang of the tide against
it the ground shook, the shingle clashed, the spray rose vertically, and
was blown over their heads. Quantities of sea-water trickled through
the pebble wall, and ran in rivulets across their path to join the sea
within. The 'Island' was an island still.

They had not realized the force of the elements till now. Pedestrians
had often been blown into the sea hereabout, and drowned, owing to
a sudden breach in the bank; which, however, had something of a
supernatural power in being able to close up and join itself together
again after such disruption, like Satan's form when, cut in two by the
sword of Michael,

'The ethereal substance closed,
Not long divisible.'

Her clothing offered more resistance to the wind than his, and she was
consequently in the greater danger. It was impossible to refuse his
proffered aid. First he gave his arm, but the wind tore them apart as
easily as coupled cherries. He steadied her bodily by encircling her
waist with his arm; and she made no objection.

* * *

Somewhere about this time--it might have been sooner, it might have been
later--he became conscious of a sensation which, in its incipient and
unrecognized form, had lurked within him from some unnoticed moment when
he was sitting close to his new friend under the lerret. Though a
young man, he was too old a hand not to know what this was, and
felt alarmed--even dismayed. It meant a possible migration of the
Well-Beloved. The thing had not, however, taken place; and he went on
thinking how soft and warm the lad