e to his own bathing-cove, which he discovered with
relief to be deserted.

She would have subsided in a heap upon the sand the moment she felt it
warm and dry beneath her feet; but he held her up.

"No. A good run is what you need. Come! Your mackintosh is half-a-mile
away."

She looked at him with dismay, but he remained inexorable. He had no
desire to have her fainting on his hands. As if she had been a boy, he
gripped her by the elbow.

Again she submitted stumblingly to his behest, but when they had covered
half the distance Courteney had mercy.

"You're fagged out," he said. "Rest here while I go and fetch it!"

She sank down thankfully on the shingle, and he strode swiftly on.

When he returned she had hollowed a nest for herself, and was lying
curled up in the sun. Her head was pillowed on her cap, and the soft
golden curls waved tenderly above her white forehead. Once more she
seemed to him a mere child, and he looked down upon her with compassion.

She sat up at his approach with a boyish, alert movement, and lifted
her eyes to his. He likened them half-unconsciously to the purple-blue
of hare-bells, in the ardent light of the early morning.

"You are kind!" she said gratefully.

He placed the white mackintosh around her slim figure. "Take my advice,"
he said in his brief fashion, "and don't come bathing alone in this
direction again!"

She made a small shy gesture of invitation. "Sit down a minute!" she
said half-pleadingly. "I know you are very wet; but the sun is so warm,
and they say sea-water never chills."

He hesitated momentarily; then, possibly because she had spoken with so
childlike an appeal, he sat down in the shingle beside her.

She stretched out a slender hand to him, almost as though feeling her
way. And when he took it she made a slight movement towards him, as of
one about to make a confidence. "Now we can talk," she said.

He let her hand go again, and felt in the pocket of his coat, which he
carried on his arm, for his pipe.

She drew a little nearer to him. "Mr. Courteney," she said, "doesn't
'Thank you' sound a silly thing to say?"

He drew back. "Don't! Please don't!" he said, and flushed uneasily as he
opened his tobacco-pouch. "I would infinitely rather you said nothing at
all to any one. Don't do it again, that's all."

"Mustn't I even tell Rosa Mundi?" she said.

His flush deepened as he remembered that she would probably know him by
name. She must have known i