shoulder in the sea.

"Life-saving seems to soften the heart," she reflected, grimly, conscious
as always of her own reactions.

"Well," said Kay weakly, as they climbed up the cliff path to the little
village, "I do call that a rotten bathe. Now let's make for the pub and
drink whiskey."

7

It was three days later. They had spent an afternoon and a night at
Polperro, and the sun shone in the morning on that incredible place as
they rode out of it after breakfast. Polperro shakes the soul and the
aesthetic nerves like a glass of old wine; no one can survey it unmoved,
or leave it as he entered it, any more than you can come out of a fairy
ring as you went in. In the afternoon they had bathed in the rock pools
along the coast. In the evening the moon had magically gleamed on the
little town, and Barry and Gerda had sat together on the beach watching
it, and then in the dawn they had risen (Barry and Gerda again) and rowed
out in a boat to watch the pilchard haul, returning at breakfast time
sleepy, fishy and bright-eyed.

As they climbed the steep hill path that leads to Talland, the sun danced
on the little harbour with its fishing-boats and its sad, crowding,
crying gulls, and on the huddled white town with its narrow crooked
streets and overhanging houses: Polperro had the eerie beauty of a dream
or of a little foreign port. Such beauty and charm are on the edge of
pain; you cannot disentangle them from it. They intoxicate, and pierce to
tears. The warm morning sun sparkled on a still blue sea, and burned the
gorse and bracken by the steep path's edge to fragrance. So steep the
path was that they had to push their bicycles up it with bent backs and
labouring steps, so narrow that they had to go in single file. It was
never meant for cyclists, only for walkers; the bicycling road ran far
inland.

They reached the cliff's highest point, and looked down on Talland Bay.
By the side of the path, on a grass plateau, a stone war-cross reared
grey against a blue sky, with its roll of names, and its comment--"True
love by life, true love by death is tried...."

The path, become narrower, rougher and more winding, plunged sharply,
steeply downwards, running perilously along the cliff's edge. Nan got on
her bicycle.

Barry called from the rear, "Nan! It can't be done! It's not
rideable.... Don't be absurd."

Nan, remarking casually "It'll be rideable if I ride it," began to do so.

"Madwoman," Barry said, and K