“Very well,” called the boy, “I am going, and you can sit there or follow, as you like.”

He swung on his heel and set forth, ’Dolph scampering ahead and barking so wildly that the noise of it scared the birds again in flock after flock from their ledges.

On the ridge the boy halted for a moment and looked down.  But Tilda sat stubbornly on her rock, still with her back turned.

She had pulled out her book, the Lady’s Vade-Mecum, but only for a pretence.  She did not in the least want to read, nor could her eyes just now have distinguished a word of the text.  She was wholly miserable; and yet, curiously enough, after the first minute her misery did not rest on despair, or at any rate not consciously.  She was wretched because the boy had broken away and gone without her, and ’Dolph with him—­’Dolph, her own dog.  They were ungrateful. . . .  Had not everything gone right so long as they had obeyed her?  While now—­They would find out, of course.  Even Arthur Miles would begin to feel hungry after a while, and then—­’Dolph might keep going for a time on rabbits, though as a circus-dog he was not clever at sport.

Yes, she had a right to be indignant.  She had lost command for a moment, and Arthur Miles had straightway led her into this trap. . . .  This was all very well, but deep down beneath the swellings of indignation there lurked a thought that gradually surmounted them, working upwards until it sat whispering in her ear. . . .  They were in a tight place, no doubt, . . . but was she behaving well?  Now that the mess was made and could not be unmade, where was the pluck—­where was even the sense—­of sitting here and sulking?  Had she stuck it out, why then at the end she could have forgiven him, and they would have died together. . . .  She stared forlornly at the book, and a ridiculous mocking sentence stared back at her:  “It is often surprising into what tasty breakfast dishes the cunning housewife will convert the least promising materials.”  In a gust of temper she caught up the book and hurled it from her.

And yet . . . with all these birds about, there must surely be eggs.  She had not a notion how gulls’ eggs tasted.  Raw eggs! they would certainly be nasty; but raw eggs, after all, will support life.  Moreover, deliverance might come, and before long.  The Tossells, when they found the boat missing, would start a search, and on the Island there might be some means of signalling.  How could she be forgiven, or forgive herself, if the rescuers arrived to find Arthur Miles dead and herself alive?

With that a dreadful apprehension seized her, and she stood erect, listening. . . .  She had let him go alone, into Heaven knew what perils.  He was searching along the cliffs, searching for a cave, and very likely for gulls’ eggs on the way. . . .  What easier than to slip and break his neck?  She listened—­listened.  But the sound of ’Dolph’s barking had long ago died away. . . .  Oh, if he were dead, and she must search the Island alone for him!