“Look here,” said the boy severely, “we haven’t searched yet.  What’s the use of giving in before we’ve tried? Nobody starves on the Island, I tell you; and—­and I can’t bear your talking in this way.  It isn’t like you—­”

“I can’t ’elp it,” owned poor Tilda with a dry sob.

“—­breaking down,” he continued, “just when we’ve reached, and all the rest is going to happen just as the book says.”

“That’s likely!”

“It’s certain.”  He pulled out the tattered, coverless volume.  “Why, I do believe”—­he said it with a kind of grave wonder—­“you’re hankering after that silly cottage!”

“Of course I am,” she confessed defiantly, for he exasperated her.  “We’d promised to ride over an’ see Miss Sally this afternoon, an’ I wanted to spend the ‘ole mornin’ learnin’ ’ow to be a lady. . . .  I don’t get too much time for these little things.”

The protest was weak enough, and weakly uttered.  Until the moment of embarking on this expedition Tilda had been throughout their wanderings always and consciously the leader—­her will the stronger, her’s to initiate and to guide.  But now he stuck his hands deeper into his pockets.

“That’s all very well,” he replied; “but you can’t get to Miss Sally’s to-day.  So who’s unpractical now?  Let’s find the cave first, and have breakfast; and then, if you’re tired of exploring, you can sit on cushions all day, and read your book and learn how to be a princess—­ which is ever so much higher than an ordinary lady.”

“Cave? Wot cave? Wot breakfast? Wot cushions?  Oh, I do believe, Arthur Miles, you’ve gone stark starin’ mad!”

“Why,” he reasoned with her, “on a seashore like this there are bound to be caves; the only trouble will be to find the right one.  And as for breakfast, it was you that talked about it just now.”

His persistence, his gentleness, the careful lucidity of his craze drove her fairly beside herself.

“Oh,” she cried again, “if you ain’t mad, then I must be, or elst I’m sickenin’ for it!  It don’t much matter, any’ow.  We got to starve ’ere an’ die, an’ the sooner the better.”

She walked across the beach to a smooth slab of rock and seated herself sullenly, with her eyes on the distant mainland.  They were misty with tears of anger, of despair.  But he could not see them, for she had resolutely turned her back on him.  Had she broken down—­had she uttered one sob even—­the boy would have run to her side.  As it was, he gazed at her sorrowfully. . . .  She had lost her temper again, and it spoiled everything.  But the spell of the Island was on him.  Above, in the sunlight, the green gully wound upward and inland, inviting him; and here on the shingle at his feet sat ’Dolph and looked up at him, with eyes that appealed for a ramble.  The dog’s teeth chattered, and small suppressed noises worked in his throat.