ed dog. Rosalind felt
glad she had not looked at _her_.

Presently Fenwick said: "Now, who's coming for a walk with me?" But
Sally was off directly to find the Swiss girl she sometimes bathed
with, and Rosalind thought it would be nice in a sheltered place on
the beach. She really wanted to be alone, and knew the shortest way
to this was to sit still, especially in the morning; but Gerry had
better get Vereker to go for a walk. Perhaps she would look in at
his mother's later. So Fenwick, after a customary caution to Sally
not to drown herself, went away to find Conrad, as he generally
called him now.

Rosalind was shirking a problem she dared not face from a cowardly
conviction of its insolubility. What would she do if Gerry should,
without some warning, identify her? She had to confess to herself that
she had no clue at all to the effect it would have, coming suddenly,
on him. She could at least imagine aspects, attitudes, tones of voice
for him if it came slowly; but she could not supply any image of
him, under other circumstances, not more or less founded on her
recollections of twenty years ago. Might she not lose him again, as
she lost him then? She _must_ get nearer to safety than she was now.
Was she not relying on the house not catching fire instead of
negotiating insurance policies or providing fire extinguishers?

She would go and sit under the shelter of one of the many unemployed
machines--for only a few daring spirits would follow Sally's example
to-day--and try to think it out. Just a few instructions to Mrs.
Lobjoit, and a word or two of caution to Gerry not to fall over
cliffs, or to get run over at level-crossings or get sunstrokes,
or get cold, etc., and she would fall back on her own society and
think....

Yes, that was the question! Might she not lose him again? And if she
did, how live without him?... Oh yes, she would be no worse off than
before, in a certain sense. She would have Sally still ... but....

Which would be the worse? The loss of the husband whom every day
taught her to love more dearly, or the task of explaining the cause
of her loss to Sally? The one she fixed her mind on always seemed
intolerable. As for the other contingencies--difficulties of making
all clear to friends, and so forth--let them go; they were not worth
a thought. But she _must_ be beforehand, and know how to act, how to
do her best to avert both, if the thing she dreaded came to pass....

There now! Here she