biscuits lay the remains
of the beef from last night's supper; she took it and ate it with a
biscuit, sitting on the floor of the cave and staring before her out at
the strip of beach where the boat lay on its side with the sea breaking
beyond.

On the day the men had gone off inland on their expedition she had
terrified herself with fancies of what it would be like were she to find
herself here alone. Her imagination had gone far from the reality.

The thing had happened; the men were gone, gone forever, yet she was not
alone. They filled the place by their absence far more than they had
filled it by their presence.

The louder cry of a gull outside seemed hailing Bompard, the rustle of a
rabbit on the sands seemed the coming of La Touche, the sound of the sea
spoke of them, the boat seemed only waiting for them to launch it. They,
whom a million years would not bring back.

She felt neither regret for the fate of La Touche nor sorrow for the
fate of Bompard, all that seemed unreal, just as the darkness and terror
of the night before seemed unreal. The real thing that touched her
through everything was Expectancy. Expectancy, ghostly and attenuated,
yet ubiquitous.

It brought her to the cave mouth before she had finished her meal. The
beach seemed to say to her: "Come out and look!" and she came out and
looked, and the line of foam and the wheeling or stalking gulls held her
for a moment as though saying--a moment, a moment more and you will see
something. They will come. Any moment now you may see Bompard crossing
the rocks. La Touche is not in that cave, he is here, everywhere.

She came back into the cave and sat down and finished her meal, the food
had renewed her strength and with renewed strength her indifference to
all that had happened began to pass.

She had killed La Touche. The reality of that fact was coming home to
her now; she did not reason in the least on the matter saying he
deserved to be killed, that had all been settled long ago in her mind,
but the fact that she had killed him was standing strongly out before
her, also the facts that he was dead and lying quite close to her and
that though she did not mind his dead body she was beginning to dread
something else.

Dead, he was beginning to frighten her just as he had frightened her
when living. Then she found that it was just the same with Bompard. He
was frightening her too.

Suppose one or the other were to peep in at her, and nod at h