“It is what I was telling you about, a sensation of someone standing close behind me.”

“It’s nothing, Leonie, just imagination,” said Jan Cuxson.

For how could he see a certain high caste native of India walking slowly down the gangway from the great ship just docked at Tilbury, and smiling inscrutably as he placed his foot in the country which held the white woman he sought?

Leonie turned her head quickly, and shivered again, violently.

“It was just as though someone had called me,” she said, speaking just above a whisper.

“Look at me, dear!”

Leonie looked straight into the honest grey eyes, and the fear died out of her own as she met the steady gaze.

“I’m slow, dear, dead slow, plodding I suppose they’d call me, but once I’m on to something I never let go until I’ve won.  Things are black, sweetheart, but something is telling me that I shall find a way out.  When—­when is——­”

Leonie lied.

It was beyond her power of will to place a limit to her sudden newborn happiness; she would not give a definite date, and relying on the certainty that the man would never allow anyone to gossip to him about the wedding, she lied—­deliberately.

“Oh! there’s plenty of time, don’t let’s talk about it.”

She sprang to her feet and flung out her arms to the sea.

“Let’s forget, Jan, let’s forget!  Let’s steal something from Fate and be happy.  Let’s be friends, pals; we can’t be anything else, because I am in honour bound.  And—­and—­I’m so hungry “—­she turned her radiant, laughing face to him—­“I’ll race you to Barricane for tea.”

She was off as she spoke, with Cuxson close behind.  They jumped from rock to rock, they slipped, they slithered, they splashed up to their knees in pools and out again.

The man did not break the compact when he caught her in the shadow of the wreck and drew her into the shelter of his arms.

“Pal!” he whispered.  “Little pal!”

And she lay quite still until the thud of their hearts, caused by the strenuous exercise, had given place to the stronger, steadier beat of steadfast love; then she slipped down, ducked under his arms and was away, and her laugh was caught by the wind and blown back to him as he ran in hot pursuit.

CHAPTER XIX

  “Write them upon the table of thine heart!”—­The Bible.

Leonie’s wrist watch very softly chimed midnight, announcing in gentle tones the birth of her wedding-day, as she sat with her chin in her hands staring out to sea.

She frowned and pulled savagely at the band until it broke; there was a faint crash, and a faint splash, as the watch, hurtling through the air, ricocheted from a rock into a pool as the girl stretched her arms above her head, leant back, and closed her eyes.

Her last midnight swim, the last time she would slip the bathing dress over her beautiful virgin body, the last time she would revel in freedom, oh! the last time of anything decent, and pure, and sweet.