watch very softly chimed midnight, announcing in gentle
tones the birth of her wedding-day, as she sat with her chin in her
hands staring out to sea.

She frowned and pulled savagely at the band until it broke; there was a
faint crash, and a faint splash, as the watch, hurtling through the
air, ricocheted from a rock into a pool as the girl stretched her arms
above her head, leant back, and closed her eyes.

Her last midnight swim, the last time she would slip the bathing dress
over her beautiful virgin body, the last time she would revel in
freedom, oh! the last time of anything decent, and pure, and sweet.

She had not lost her heart or her head, in fact she had gone through
none of those amorous gymnastics which seem necessary to the cardiac
state of being in love.

She _loved_, and she knew it, and confessed it on her knees at night,
and when she walked, or swam, or rode, or carried her food on her back,
or braided her hair in the day. She was loved and she knew it, and
thanked her God when she lay down to sleep at night, and when she
shopped, or placated her petulant relation, or played bridge or the
piano equally badly, or got wet through in the storm, and tanned by the
wind.

Many times Sir Walter had almost been on the verge of giving her her
desire.

_Almost_! Because it only needed two things to make him toe the line
of sensual infatuation; the first being the graciousness of every line
of her beautiful person when she met him by chance; and the second, the
ungraciousness of her distinctly unpleasant manner upon the same
occasion, over both of which he promised himself as he inwardly raged
at her frequent, prolonged and unexplained absences, he would shortly
have full control.

The month had slipped by so quickly, the month in which she had
indifferently left to her aunt and fiance the choosing of her
trousseau, and the arrangement of the ceremony; also the honeymoon,
that subsequent insight into purgatory which she was to endure as best
she could in an isolated, thatched cottage t'other side of Hartland
Point.

A month during which she had walked, and talked, and walked again with
Jan Cuxson, who caused her heart to thud heavily even though he did not
touch her hand in greeting, or parting, or at any other time.

They had gathered _laver_--that most delectable vegetable-seaweed--at
the base of the Woolacombe rocks; dug and scratched for the elusive
cowrie shell in the sands of Barricane Beach; d