ing of distant thunder lit up the water for a moment with
visions of heavenly beauty, and then were devoured by the grim and
greedy darkness.

During dinner we kept faith with each other. In order to avoid the one
subject that was uppermost in both our minds, we played at being
children, and pretended it was the day we sailed to St. Mary's Rock.

Thinking back to that time, and all the incidents which he had thought
so heroic and I so tragic, we dropped into the vernacular, and I called
him "boy" and he called me "bogh millish," and at every racy word that
came up from the forgotten cells of our brains we shrieked with
laughter.

When Martin spoke of his skipper I asked "Is he a stunner?" When he
mentioned one of his scientific experts I inquired "Is he any good?" And
after he had told me that he hoped to take possession of some island in
the name of the English crown, and raise the Union Jack on it, I said:
"Do or die, we allus does that when we're out asploring."

How we laughed! He laughed because I laughed, and I laughed because he
was laughing. I had some delicious moments of femininity too (such as no
woman can resist), until it struck me suddenly that in all this
make-believe we were making love to each other again. That frightened me
for a time, but I told myself that everything was safe as long as we
could carry on the game.

It was not always easy to do so, though, for some of our laughter had
tears behind it, and some of our memories had an unexpected sting,
because things had a meaning for us now which they never had before, and
we were compelled to realise what life had done for us.

Thus I found my throat throbbing when I recalled the loss of our boat,
leaving us alone together on that cruel rock with the rising tide
threatening to submerge us, and I nearly choked when I repeated my last
despairing cry: "I'm not a stunner! . . . and you'll have to give me up
. . . and leave me here, and save yourself."

It was like walking over a solfataro with the thin hot earth ready to
break up under our feet.

To escape from it I sat down at the piano and began to sing. I dared not
sing the music I loved best--the solemn music of the convent--so I sang
some of the nonsense songs I had heard in the streets. At one moment I
twisted round on the piano stool and said:

"I'll bet you anything"--(I always caught Martin's tone in Martin's
company), "you can't remember the song I sang sitting in the boat with
Willia