h and yelled away up the
break in the cliffs like a hunter in a hurry to get to the wild work
going on amidst the hills.

She turned back towards the caves.

La Touche had left the tin plates lying on the sand and the wind, which
seemed to possess a hundred fingers, was chasing them about. He was
trying to recapture them and as he brought them back he laughed. It was
the first time she had seen him laugh. Then as he stowed them away he
shewed a disposition towards intimacy and talkativeness.

"That's what the winds are in this place," said he, "no wonder ships
steer clear of it."

"I'm not thinking of the wind," said she, "I'm thinking of Bompard."

"Oh, Bompard will come back all right," said he, "the grub's here and
that will bring him. Bompard will come back all right."

"No," said she, "he will never come back and you know it."

She turned away from him. Dusk was now falling and as she entered her
cave the wind from the sea suddenly fell dead. Almost immediately it
began to blow again, but now from the land and as though this land wind
were spreading a pall over the sky darkness fell suddenly and with the
darkness she could hear the rain coming with the sound she had heard
once before like the murmuring of a great top spun by a giant.

Then the rain burst on the beach with a roar through which came the hiss
of the rain-swept sea.

The sound was almost welcome. As she lay in the darkness it seemed like
a protecting wall between herself and La Touche. La Touche's ill-temper
would have disturbed her less than his cheerfulness and amiability, born
so suddenly and from no apparent reasons. She had determined not to
sleep and she had lain down fully dressed; even to the oilskin coat and
with her boots on; to-morrow she would go off and hide amongst the
bushes beyond the cliff break and get some sleep, but to-night she would
not close her eyes; so she told herself.

She had taken the knife from its sheath and placed it beside her, her
hand rested on it. An hour passed, and now, as she lay listening to the
pouring of the rain her fingers felt the pattern of the hilt. The hilt
was striated cross-ways to give a better grip, and as her fingers
wandered up and down the strictions the cross bars of a ladder were
suggested to her. The steady pouring of the rain seemed to work on this
idea and make it more real. Then she was climbing a ladder set against
the cliffs. La Touche was holding it at the foot and Bompard was w