about it than that!"

There were very few people waiting on the platform when the train drew
into Whitcombe, and so Henry and Mary saw each other immediately, and
when he saw her, standing on the windy platform, with her hand to her
hat, he felt more powerfully than he had ever felt it, his old love for
her surging through him. Nothing could ever divert him from her for very
long ... inevitably he would return to her ... whatever of permanence
there was in his life was centred in her. He led her out of the station
and they walked along the road at the top of the shingle ... and as they
walked, suddenly he turned to her and, drawing her arm in his, told her
that he loved her.

"I haven't much to offer you, Mary ... I'm a poor sort of fellow at the
best ... but I need you, and!..."

She did not answer, but she looked up at him with shining eyes....

"My dear!" he said, and drew her very close to him.

3

They went up the path over the red cliffs and then climbed the steep
steps that led to the top of the White Cliff. The night was beginning to
gather her clouds about her, but still they did not hurry homewards. Far
out, they could see the trawlers returning to the Bay, dipping and
rising and plunging and reeling before the wind as from a heavy blow,
and then, when it seemed that they must fall, righting themselves and
moving swiftly homewards. Beneath them, the sea splashed in great thick
waves that tossed their spray high in the air, and the gulls and
jackdaws spun round and up and down or huddled themselves in the shelter
of the cliffs.

"Mary!" he said, putting his arm about her.

"Yes, Quinny!" she answered so quietly that he could not hear her above
the noise of the sea and the wind.

He raised her lips to his and kissed her.

"My dear!" he said again.

4

There was news of Ninian for them when they reached the Manor. Mrs.
Graham, with his letter in her hand, met them at the door.

"He's coming home on leave," she said. "He'll be here to-morrow night.
Then he's going out!..."

She turned away quickly, after she had spoken, and they followed her
silently into the drawing-room. She stood for a while at the window,
gazing down the avenue where the oaks and the chestnuts mingled their
branches and made a covering for passers-by.

"I'll just go upstairs," Henry began, but before he could leave the
room, Mrs. Graham turned away from the window and went to him.

"I've put you in your old room, Henry