back, she was still hesitating in the doorway. He
lifted inquiring brows.

"Hugh...."

"Yes?"

"I trust you. Be faithful, dear."

"Thank you," he returned, not without flavour of bitterness. "I'll try
to be. Good night."

She disappeared; the light of her lamp faded, flickering in the draught
of the hall, stencilled the wall with its evanescent caricature of the
balustrade, and was no longer visible.

"Hugh!" her voice rang from the upper floor.

He started violently out of deep abstraction, and replied inquiringly.

"You won't forget to lock the door?"

He swore violently beneath his breath; controlled his temper and
responded pleasantly: "Certainly not."

Then he shut the outside door with a convincing bang.

"If this be marriage...!" He smiled his twisted smile, laughed a little
quietly, and became again his normal, good-natured self, if a little
unusually preoccupied.

Leaving the kitchen light turned low, he went to his own room and, as on
the previous night, threw himself upon the bed without undressing; but
this time with no thought of sleep. Indeed, he had no expectation of
closing his eyes in slumber before the next night, at the earliest; he
had no intention other than to attempt to swim to the nearest land. In
the illusion of night, his judgment worked upon by his emotions, that
plan which had during the afternoon suggested itself, been thoroughly
considered, rejected as too desperately dangerous, and then reconsidered
in the guise of their only possible chance of escape at any reasonably
early date, began to assume a deceptive semblance of feasibility.

He did not try to depreciate its perils: the tides that swept through
that funnel-shaped channel were unquestionably heavy: heavier than even
so strong a swimmer as he should be called upon to engage; the chances
of being swept out to sea were appallingly heavy. The slightest error in
judgment, the least miscalculation of the turn of the tide, and he was
as good as lost.

On the other hand, with a little good luck, by leaving the house shortly
after moonrise, he should be able to catch the tide just as it was
nearing high water. Allowing it to swing him northwest until it fulled,
he ought to be a third of the way across by the time it slackened, and
two-thirds of the distance before it turned seawards again. And the
distance was only three miles or so.

And the situation on the island had grown unendurable. He doubted his
strength to stan