ill be nearly light. I will wave to you from Breniere;" and they
went slowly round to the ledges, and parted with kisses; and in the grey
morning light he could, for a time, follow the little white figure as it
slipped bravely through the bristling black waves of the Race.

But presently he could see her no more, and could but wait, full of
anxiety and many prayers, for the signal that should tell of her safety.

But it did not come, and he grew desperate and full of fears.

CHAPTER XXXIV

HOW JULIE'S SCHEMES FELL FLAT

Nance found the return journey still more trying to her strength, but
she struggled through, and was devoutly thankful when the slack water
under Breniere was reached.

She waded ashore almost too weary to stand, and had to cling to the
rough rocks till she recovered her breath. Then, slowly and heavily, she
dragged herself up the lower ledges to the little plateau where her
clothes were.

Julie had sat revolving grim schemes in that black head of hers.

She hated the girl. She hated Gard. She hated Sark and every one in it.
Why had she ever come into these outer wilds? She would have done with
it all and get away back to the life that was more to her taste.

But first--yes, mon Dieu, she would leave them something to remember her
by.

She had not a doubt that Gard was still on L'Etat. Nothing else would
take this girl across there. The shameless hussy!--to go swimming across
to see her man with nothing but a white shift on!

She could wound Gard through Nance. She could wound Nance through Gard.

She could wait for the girl as she came up the side of the Head, and
push her down again or crush her with a lump of rock.

But that might mean reprisals on the part of the Islanders. She had had
experience of the way in which they resented any ill done to one of
their number by an outsider. She had no wish to join Gard on his rock.

It would be better to hold the girl up to the scorn and contempt of the
neighbours; that would punish her. And by setting the men on Gard's
track again, that would punish him and her too.

And so she restrained the natural violence of her temper, which would
have run to rocks and bodily injury, and waited in the bracken till
Nance came stumbling along in the half-light. Then up she sprang, with
an unexpectedness that for the moment took Nance's breath and set her
heart pounding with dreadful certainties of ghosts.

"So this is how you go to visit your fanc