t rouse her from her reverie.

Perhaps she was half asleep after the weary watching of the night, or
perhaps she was only too tired to notice, but when a voice suddenly spoke
behind her she started as if at an electric shock. She had almost begun
to feel that she and Columbus were indeed marooned on this wide shore.

"Are you waiting for the sea to carry you away?" the voice said. "Because
you won't have to wait much longer now."

She turned as she sat. She had heard no sound of approaching feet. The
swish of the waves had covered all beside. She looked up at him with a
feeling of utter helplessness. "You!" she said.

He turned behind her, slim, upright, intensely vital, in the morning
light. She had an impression that he was dressed in loose flannels, and
she saw a bath-towel hanging round his neck.

"You have been bathing," she said.

He laughed down at her, she saw the gleam of the white teeth in his dark
face. "I say, what a good guess! You look shocked. Is it wrong to bathe
on Sunday?"

And then quite naturally he stretched a hand to her and helped her
to her feet.

"I've been watching you for a long time," he said. "I was only a dot
in the ocean, so of course you didn't see me. I say,--tell me,--what's
the matter?"

The question was so sudden that it caught her unawares. She found herself
looking straight into the dark eyes and wondering at their steady
kindliness. She knew instinctively that she looked into the eyes of a
friend, and as a friend she spoke in answer.

"I have had rather a worrying night. I came out for a little fresh air.
It was such a perfect morning."

"And you hoped you would have the place to yourself and be able to cry
it off in comfort," he said. "I wouldn't have interfered for the world if
I hadn't been afraid that you were going to drown yourself into the
bargain. And I really couldn't bear that. There are limits, you know."

She laughed a little in spite of herself. "No, I have no intention of
drowning myself. I am not so desperate as that."

He smiled at her whimsically. "It happens sometimes unintentionally.
Let's climb up to the next shelf and sit down!"

Her hand was still in his. He kept it to help her up the tumbling stones
to a higher ridge of shingle.

"Will this do?" he asked her. "May I stay for a bit? I'll be very good."

"You always are good," said Juliet, as she sat down.

"No? Really? You don't mean that? Well, it's awfully kind of you if you
do, but it i