when_ you were that girl. And I expect that girl said
it when she was herself, whoever she was, and the name Rosalind turned
her into you? Look at this cuttlefish before he squirts."

For a moment Rosalind Fenwick was almost two people, so distinctly did
the two aspects or conditions of herself strike her mind. The one was
that of breath drawn freely, of a respite, a reprieve, a heartquake
escaped; for, indeed, she had begun to feel, as she neared the crisis,
that the trial might pass her powers of endurance. The other of a new
terror--that the tale, perhaps, _could not be told at all_! that,
unassisted by a further revival of her husband's memory, it would
remain permanently incredible by him, with what effect of a
half-knowledge of the past God only knew. The sense of reprieve got
the better of the new-born apprehension--bid it stand over for a
while, at least. Sufficient for the day was the evil thereof.

Meanwhile, Gerry, absolutely unconscious of her emotion, and seeming
much less disconcerted over this abortive recollection than over
previous ones, stood gazing down into the clear rock-pool that
contained the cuttlefish. "Do come and look at him, Rosey love," said
he. "His manners are detestable, but there can be no doubt about the
quality of his black."

She leaned a bit heavily on the arm she took as they left the
cuttlefish to his ill-conditioned solitude. "Tired, dearest?" said
her husband; and she answered, "Just a little!" But his mind was a
clean sheet on which his story would have to be written in ink as
black as the cuttlefish's Parthian squirt, and in a full round hand
without abbreviations, unless it should do something to help itself.
Let it rest while she rested and thought.

She thought and thought--happy for all her strain of nerve and mind,
on the quiet stretch of sand and outcrop of chalk, slippery with weed,
that the ebbing tide would leave safe for them for hours to come.
So thinking, and seeing the way in which her husband's reason was
entrenched against the facts of his own life, in a citadel defended by
human experience at bay, she wavered in her resolution of a few hours
since--or, rather, she saw the impossibility of forcing the position,
thinking contentedly that at least if it was so impracticable to
her it would be equally so to other agencies, and he might be relied
on to remain in the dark. The _status quo_ would be the happiest,
if it could be preserved. So when, after a two hours