, with the slight supercilious smile which was his most
marked physical peculiarity, but of which he was quite unconscious,
"your will is quite safe now! If we meet at Folkestone I'll hand it you
back; if we miss one another in the--er--fog I'll destroy it, as
arranged."

He turned and began walking back to where Nan Archdale was sitting. What
a very odd thing! How extraordinary, how unexpected!

Then a light broke in on him. Why, of course, it was Nan who had brought
this about! She had touched up the Jew fellow's conscience, frightened
him about that woman--the woman who had so absurdly termed him her
"_petit homme adore_." That's what came of mixing up in other people's
business; but Coxeter's eyes nevertheless rested on the sitting figure
of his friend with a certain curious indulgence. Odd, sentimental,
sensitive creatures--women! But brave--not lacking in moral courage
anyway.

As he came close up to her, Mrs. Archdale moved a little, making room
for him to sit down by her. It was a graceful, welcoming gesture, and
John Coxeter's pulse began to quicken.... He told himself that this also
was an extraordinary thing--this journey with the woman he had wished to
make his wife. He felt her to be so tantalizingly near, and yet in a
sense so very far away.

His eyes fell on her right hand, still encased in his large brown glove.
As he had buttoned that glove, he had touched her soft wrist, and a wild
impulse had come to him to bend yet a little closer and press his lips
to the white triangle of yielding flesh. Of course he had resisted the
temptation, reminding himself sternly that it was a caddish thing even
to have thought of taking advantage of Nan's confiding friendliness. Yet
now he wondered whether he had been a fool not to do it. Other men did
those things.

* * * * *

There came a dragging, grating sound, the boat shuddering as if in
response. Coxeter had the odd sensation that he was being gently but
irresistibly pushed round, and yet he sat quite still, with nothing in
the saloon changed in relation to himself.

Someone near him exclaimed in a matter-of-fact voice, "We've struck;
we're on a rock." Everyone stood up, and he saw an awful look of doubt,
of unease, cross the faces of the men and women about him.

The fog-horn ceased trumpeting, and there rose confused sounds, loud
hoarse shouts and thin shrill cries, accompanying the dull thunder
caused by the tramping of fe