St. Sennans about him in the sunshine, and
Sally to come. However, before he reached the flagstaff he met the
doctor, and heard that Miss Sally had actually gone down to the
machines to see if Gabriel wouldn't put one down near the water,
so that she could run a little way. She was certain she could
swim in that sea if she could once get through what she called the
selvage-wave. If Gabriel wouldn't, she should take her things up to
the house and put them on and walk down to the sea in a cloak. It was
quite ridiculous, said the merpussy, people making such a fuss about
a few waves. What was the world coming to?

"She'll be all safe," was Fenwick's comment when he heard this. "They
won't let her go in, at the machines. They won't let her leave the
Turkey-twill knickers and the short skirt. She always leaves them
there to dry. _She's_ all right. Let's take a turn across the field;
it's too windy for the cliff."

"You had a bad night, Fenwick."

"All of us had. About three in the morning I thought the house would
blow down. And there was a door banged, etc...."

"You had a worse night than the rest of us. Look at me straight in
the face. No, I wasn't going to say show me your tongue." They had
stopped a moment at the top of what was known as The Steps--_par
excellence_--which was the shortest cut up to the field-path. Dr.
Conrad looks a second or so, and then goes on: "I thought so. You've
got black lines under your eyes, and you're evidently conscious of the
lids. I expect you've got a pain in them, one in each, tied together
by a string across here." That is to say, from eyebrow to eyebrow,
as illustrated fingerwise.

Fenwick wasn't prepared to deny it evidently. He drew his own fingers
across his forehead, as though to feel if the pain were really there.
It confirmed a suspicion he couldn't have sworn to.

"Yes; I suppose I did have a worse night than the rest of you. At
least, I hope so, for your sakes." His manner might have seemed to
warrant immediate speculation or inquiry about the cause of his
sleeplessness, but Vereker walked on beside him in silence. The way
was along a short, frustrated street that led to the field-pathway
that was grass-grown, more or less, all but the heaps of flints that
were one day to make a new top-dressing, but had been forgotten by the
local board, and the premature curb-stones whose anticipations about
traffic had never been fulfilled. The little detached houses on either
side w