I suppose not," said Denry.

There was undoubtedly something fine about Ruth. In that moment she had
it in her to kill Denry with a bodkin. But she merely smiled. The
situation was terribly strained, past all Denry's previous conceptions
of a strained situation; but she deviated with superlative
_sang-froid_ into frothy small talk. A proud and an unconquerable
woman! After all, what were men for, if not to pay?

"I think I shall go home to-night," she said, after the excursion into
prattle.

"I'm sorry," said Denry.

He was not coming out of his castle.

At that moment a hand touched his shoulder. It was the hand of Cregeen,
the owner of the old lifeboat.

"Mister," said Cregeen, too absorbed in his own welfare to notice Ruth.
"It's now or never! Five-and-twenty'll buy the _Fleetwing_, if
ten's paid down this mornun."

And Denry replied boldly:

"You shall have it in an hour. Where shall you be?"

"I'll be in John's cabin, under the pier," said Cregeen, "where ye found
me this mornun."

"Right," said Denry.

If Ruth had not been caracoling on her absurdly high horse, she would
have had the truth out of Denry in a moment concerning these early
morning interviews and mysterious transactions in shipping. But from
that height she could not deign to be curious. And so she said naught.
Denry had passed the whole morning since breakfast and had uttered no
word of pre-prandial encounters with mariners, though he had talked a
lot about his article for the _Signal_ and of how he had risen
betimes in order to despatch it by the first train.

And as Ruth showed no curiosity Denry behaved on the assumption that she
felt none. And the situation grew even more strained.

As they walked down the pier towards the beach, at the dinner-hour, Ruth
bowed to a dandiacal man who obsequiously saluted her.

"Who's that?" asked Denry, instinctively.

"It's a gentleman that I was once engaged to," answered Ruth, with cold,
brief politeness.

Denry did not like this.

The situation almost creaked under the complicated stresses to which it
was subject. The wonder was that it did not fly to pieces long before
evening.

VI

The pride of the principal actors being now engaged, each person was
compelled to carry out the intentions which he had expressed either in
words or tacitly. Denry's silence had announced more efficiently than
any words that he would under no inducement emerge from his castle. Ruth
had stated plainly