There was a lessening of the roar in their ears.  Under the lee of the English shore the wind was milder, the “terror-music” of the sea less triumphant.  And over everything was stealing the first discriminating touch of the coming light.  Her face was clear now; and Delafield, at last venturing to look at her, saw that her eyes were open again, and trembled at their expression.  There was in them a wild suspicion.  Secretly, steadily, he nerved himself to meet the blow that he foresaw.

“Mr. Delafield, have you told me all the truth?”

She sat up as she spoke, deadly pale but rigid.  With an impatient hand she threw off the wraps which had covered her.  Her face commanded an answer.

“Certainly I have told you the truth.”

“Was it the whole truth?  It seems—­it seems to me that you were not prepared yourself for this journey—­that there is some mystery—­which I do not understand—­which I resent!”

“But what mystery?  When I saw you, I of course thought of Evelyn’s telegram.”

“I should like to see that telegram.”

He hesitated.  If he had been more skilled in the little falsehoods of every day he would simply have said that he had left it at the hotel.  But he lost his chance.  Nor at the moment did he clearly perceive what harm it would do to show it to her.  The telegram was in his pocket, and he handed it to her.

There was a dim oil-lamp in the shelter.  With difficulty she held the fluttering paper up and just divined the words.  Then the wind carried it away and blew it overboard.  He rose and leaned against the edge of the shelter, looking down upon her.  There was in his mind a sense of something solemn approaching, round which this sudden lull of blast and wave seemed to draw a “wind-warm space,” closing them in.

“Why did you come with me?” she persisted, in an agitation she could now scarcely control.  “It is evident you had not meant to travel.  You have no luggage, and you are in evening-dress.  And I remember now—­you sent two letters from the station!”

“I wished to be your escort.”

Her gesture was almost one of scorn at the evasion.

“Why were you at the station at all?  Evelyn had told you I was at Bruges.  And—­you were dining out.  I—­I can’t understand!”

She spoke with a frowning intensity, a strange queenliness, in which was neither guilt nor confusion.

A voice spoke in Delafield’s heart.  “Tell her!” it said.

He bent nearer to her.

“Miss Le Breton, with what friends were you going to stay in Paris?”

She breathed quick.

“I am not a school-girl, I think, that I should be asked questions of that kind.”

“But on your answer depends mine.”

She looked at him in amazement.  His gentle kindness had disappeared.  She saw, instead, that Jacob Delafield whom her instinct had divined from the beginning behind the modest and courteous outer man, the Jacob Delafield of whom she had told the Duchess she was afraid.