As she realised my intention she seemed to turn into a wild animal in my arms.  She bit and tore at my wrists, and scratched my face with her long sharp nails.

The ship was moving now and I was desperate.

I walked with her to the window and put her feet over the ledge.

We neither of us spoke a word.  She clung to my neck so I thought she must overbalance me and drag me through with her.

With all my force I pushed her outwards and away from me.  Her hands broke from my neck and scratched down my face till the blood ran from it.

“Don’t struggle so,” I warned her; “you will drop into the sea if you do.”  For a blue crack opened already between the moving ship and the quay.

Words were useless.  She bit and struggled and clung to me like a cat mad with fear and rage.

With an effort I leant forward and half threw, half dropped her on the woodwork.  She fell there with a gasping cry, and I drew the window to and shut it.

The ship rose and fell now and the blue water gleamed in an ever-widening track between its side and the quay.

I leant against the window glass and watched her through it.  She had struggled to her knees and now knelt there weeping and stretching out little ivory tinted hands to the departing ship.  My own eyes were full, and only through a mist could I see her kneeling there, a brilliant spot of colour in dazzling light on the deserted quay.

I turned away at last as we struck out on the open water.  There, on my berth, facing me as I stumbled back to it, lay a little yellow jacket.

I threw myself upon it and put my hand over my eyes, while the ship made out beyond the fairy islands.  And the gold night passed over and melted into the new day.

PART TWO

THE VIOLET NIGHT

CHAPTER IV

AT THE STUDIO

I was back in London again, back in my studio with the dull grey light of the city falling through the windows, and all the vivid glory, the matchless splendour of the North lay like a past dream in the background of my memory.  But still how clear the dream, how bright each moment of it, and how long to my retrospective vision!  Was it possible I had only been there three or four months?  It seemed like as many years.  For time has this peculiarity, that joy and action shorten it while it is passing, but lengthen it when it is past.  A week in which we have done nothing of note, but spent in stationary idleness, how long and tedious it seems, yet in looking back upon it, it appears short as a day; while a week in which we have travelled far, seen several cities and been glad in each, though the gilded moments have danced by on lightning feet, when we look back upon that week it seems as if we have lived a year.

It was there, bright, radiant in my mind, the picture of those blue days and golden northern nights, and how the light of the picture seemed to gather round, and centre in a sweet youthful face with the blue stone earrings, hanging against the creamy neck, beside the rounded cheek, and the cluster of red flowers bound on each temple against the smooth black hair!