“Follow me,” she whispered, and the south wind seized upon the golden tones, and flung them to the west wind, and to the east, and to the north wind, so that the message was carried right across the world:  “Follow me—­I am Hope.”

And he plunged his hands still further into his pockets and scrunched up some keys and small change and a most cherished pipe, just out of gratitude, and walked on.

He found her; in fact, he would have seen her ever so much sooner if she had not been lying face down on the sands, with her head buried in her arms.  He did not hasten, knowing that the whole of his life stretched before him in which to heal her hurt.  She did not hear him because he walked lightly, as those delightfully big men do; and he stood over her, wondering how to rouse her without frightening her, and frowned when a little sob shook her.

Then he smiled.

Strange is it how, in the very middle of the most dramatic situation, a little thought will push open the lid of its own little brain-cell and creep out to touch our risible nerve.  It really ought to know better, because empires and marriages and business contracts have been upset, if not lost, on account of its freaky humour; and it twisted the corners of the man’s mouth into a distinct smile as he involuntarily thought of the drizzling November afternoon when Damaris, in brogues, tweed skirt and mackintosh, had announced her intention of going out to join in some demonstration which had to do with the upholding of the rights of her fellow-sisters, and had only been dissuaded therefrom by the opportune arrival of tea and muffins.

Little Damaris!  Just one of those women who creep right into the hearts of men on account of their gentleness and apparent helplessness; who are born to be put into a glass cupboard before which those who love them spread themselves like door-mats; who rule with a rod pickled in their apparent helplessness, which is stronger than a whip of steel, and who are quite closely related to the barnacle and mollusc to which the tide regularly brings tit-bits out of the ocean, whilst the more mercurial eel has to go out and thresh about in the mud for what it requires to keep it going in its fight for life.

Anyway, the eel has the advantage of getting about a bit!

Then the smiled faded, and he knelt, because he could not stand the sound of that little sob any longer, and he put out his hand and stroked her hair.

“Damaris, darling, it’s I—­Ben!”

She stiffened under the shock of the words, and flung her hands over her head.

The terrible hour had come!

She would have, out of very decency, to tell him everything:  why she lay where he had so miraculously found her; how she had promised herself to his friend; how she had . . .

She clutched her bonny curls in both hands and pressed herself hard to the ground, longing that it should open and swallow her up.  She could not get up, she could not turn round to meet the eyes of the man she loved with all the strength of the love of which she was capable; she could not watch the love in his eyes change to a look of disgust; she simply could not do it.