o--it's only rather horrid.... I had been walking in the sun. It is
very hot on the beach, I think; don't you?"

"Very," said the girl gravely.

Virginia, head still bent, was touching her wet lace waist with her
wetter gloves.

"It was very good of you," she said, in a low voice--"and quite stupid
of me."

Shiela straightened to her full height and stood gravely watching the
sea-water trickle from her joined palms. When the last shining drop had
fallen she looked questioningly at Miss Suydam.

"I'm a little tired, that is all," said Virginia. She rose rather
unsteadily and took advantage of Shiela's firm young arm, which, as they
progressed, finally slipped around Miss Suydam's waist.

Very slowly they crossed the burning sands together, scarcely exchanging
a word until they reached the Cardross pavilion.

"If you'll wait until I have my shower I'll take you back in my chair,"
said Shiela. "Come into my own dressing-room; there's a lounge."

Virginia, white and haggard, seated herself, leaning back languidly
against the wall and closing her heavy eyes. They opened again when
Shiela came back from the shower, knotting in the girdle of her snowy
bath-robe, and seated herself while her maid unloosed the thick hair and
rubbed it till the brown-gold lustre came out like little gleams of
sunlight, and the ends of the burnished tresses crisped and curled up on
the smooth shoulders of snow and rose.

Virginia's lips began to quiver; she was fairly flinching now under the
pitiless contrast, fascinated yet shrinking from the splendid young
creature before her, resting there aglow in all the vigourous beauty of
untainted health.

And from the mirror reflected, the clear eyes smiled back at her,
seeming to sear her very soul with their untarnished loveliness.

"Suppose you come and lunch with me?" said Shiela. "I happen to be quite
alone. My maid is very glad to do anything for you. Will you come?"

"Yes," said Virginia faintly.

An hour later they had luncheon together in the jasmine arbour; and
after that Virginia lay in the hammock under the orange-trees, very
still, very tired, glad of the silence, and of the soft cool hand which
covered hers so lightly, and, at rare intervals, pressed hers more
lightly still.

Shiela, elbow on knee, one arm across the hammock's edge, chin cupped in
her other palm, sat staring at vacancy beside the hammock where Virginia
lay. And sometimes her partly doubled fingers indented h