t of it he saw that she had been crying. But he was too
much occupied with his own affairs to consider the matter very deeply,
and then girls cried so easily.

"Yes," he said, "let us go round by the road and the Chapel--it's a
splendid night; besides, we don't seem to have met recently. We've
both been busy, I suppose, and I've a good deal to talk about."

"If you like," she said, rather listlessly. It would, at least, save
her from her own thoughts and protect her perhaps from the ceaseless
repetition of that scene of three days ago when she had turned the man
that she loved more than all the world away and had lied to him because
she was proud.

And so at first she scarcely listened to him. They walked down the
road that ran along the top of the cliff and the great eye of the
lighthouse wheeled upon them, flashed and vanished; she saw the room
with its dingy carpet and wide-open window, and she heard his voice
again and saw his hands clenched--oh! she had been a fine fool! So it
was little wonder that she did not hear his son.

But Robin had at last an audience and he knew no mercy. All the
agitation of the last week came pouring forth--he lost all sense of
time and place; he was at the end of the world addressing infinity on
the subject of his woes, and it says a good deal for his vanity and not
much for his sense of humour that he did not feel the lack of
proportion in such a position.

"It was a girl, you know--perhaps you've met her--a Miss
Feverel--Dahlia Feverel. I met her at Cambridge and we got rather
thick, and then I wrote to her--rot, you know, like one does--and when
I wanted to get back the letters she wouldn't let me have them, and
she's going to use them, I'm afraid, for--well--Breach of Promise!"

He paused and waited for the effect of the announcement, but it never
came; she was walking quickly, with her head lifted to catch the wind
that blew from the sea--he could not be certain that she had heard.

"Breach of Promise!" he repeated impressively. "It would be rather an
awful thing for people in our position if it really came to that--it
would be beastly for me. Of course, I meant nothing by it--the
letters, I mean--a chap never does. Everybody at Cambridge talks to
girls--the girls like it--but she took it seriously, and now she may
bring it down on our heads at any time, and you can't think how beastly
it is waiting for it to come. We've done all we could--all of us--and
now I ca