ul, putting his hand on her shoulder, said:

"Here, darling, will be the centre of our lives. This is our temple.
Round this building all our happiness will revolve."

"Yes, dear," said Maggie. She was taken then for a little walk. They
went down Ivy Road and into Skeaton High Street. Here were the shops.
Mr. Bloods, the bookseller's, Tunstall the butcher, Toogood the grocer,
Father the draper, Minster the picture-dealer, Harcourt the
haberdasher, and so on. Maggie rather liked the High Street; it
reminded her of the High Street in Polchester, although there was no
hill. Out of the High Street and on to the Esplanade. You should never
see an Esplanade out of the season, Katherine had once said to Maggie.
That dictum seemed certainly true this time. There could be no doubt
that this Esplanade was not looking its best under the blustering March
wind. Here a deserted bandstand, there a railway station, here a dead
haunt for pierrots, there a closed and barred cinema house, here a row
of stranded bathing-machines, there a shuttered tea-house--and not a
living soul in sight. In front of them was a long long stretch of sand,
behind them to right and left the huddled tenements of the town, in
front of them, beyond the sand, the grey sea--and again not a living
soul in sight. The railway line wound its way at their side, losing
itself in the hills and woods of the horizon.

"There are not many people about, are there?" said Maggie. Nor could
she wonder. The East wind cut along the desolate stretches of silence,
and yet how strange a wind! It seemed to have no effect at all upon the
sea, which rolled in sluggishly with snake-like motion, throwing up on
the dim colourless beach a thin fringe of foam, baring its teeth at the
world in impotent discontent.

"Oh! there's a boy!" cried Maggie, amazed at her own relief. "How often
do the trains come in?" she asked.

"Well, we don't have many trains in the off-season," said Paul. "They
put on several extra ones in the summer."

"Oh, what's the sand doing?" Maggie cried.

She had seen sand often enough in her own Glebeshire, but never sand
like this. Under the influence of the wind it was blowing and curving
into little spirals of dust; a sudden cloud, with a kind of personal
animosity rose and flung itself across the rails at Maggie and Paul.
They were choking and blinded--and in the distance clouds of sand rose
and fell, with gusts and impulses that seemed personal and alive.