and drew herself up;
but her dress lay almost flat on her bosom. Tinoir took her arm and felt
it above the elbow.

"It is like the muscle of a little child," he said.

"But I will drink those bottles of red wine the Governor sent the last
time you watched the fire on Shaknon," she said, brightening up, and
trying to cheer him. He nodded, for he saw what she was trying to do,
and said: "Also a little of the gentian and orange root three times a
day-eh, Dalice?"

After arranging for certain signs, by little fires, which they were to
light upon the hills and so speak with each other, they said, "Good
day, Dalice," and "Good day, Tinoir," drank a glass of the red wine,
and added: "Thank the good God;" then Tinoir wiped his mouth with his
sleeve, and went away, leaving Dalice with a broken glass at her feet,
and a look in her eyes which it was well that Tinoir did not see.

But as he went he was thinking how, the night before, Dalice had lain
with her arm round his neck hour after hour as she slept, as she did
before they ever had a child; and that even in her sleep, she kissed him
as she used to kiss him before he brought her away from the parish of
Ste. Genevieve to be his wife. And the more he thought about it the
happier he became, and more than once he stopped and shook his head in
pleased retrospection. And Dalice thought of it too as she hung over the
churn, her face drawn and tired and shining with sweat; and she shook
her head, and tears came into her eyes, for she saw further into things
than Tinoir. And once as she passed his coat on the wall, she rubbed
it softly with her hand, as she might his curly head when he lay beside
her.

From Shaknon Tinoir watched; but of course he could never see her bright
sickle shining, and he could not know whether her dress still hung
loose upon her breast, or whether the flesh of her arms was still like a
child's. If all was well with Dalice a little fire should be lighted at
the house door just at the going down of the sun, and it should be at
once put out. If she was ill, a fire should be lit and then put out two
hours after sundown. If she should be ill beyond any help, this fire
should burn on till it went out.

Day after day Tinoir, as he watched for the coming fleet, saw the fire
lit at sundown, and then put out. But one night the fire did not come
till two hours after sundown, and it was put out at once. He fretted
much, and he prayed that Dalice might be better, a