Thus he brooded.

And Maggie, with her face hidden against his knee, brooded too, piercing the illusion.

He tried to win her from her sad thoughts by talking again of the house and garden.  But Maggie was tired of the house and garden now.

“And do the Pearsons look after you well still?” he asked.

“Yes.  Very well.”

“And Steve—­is he as good to you as ever?”

Maggie brightened and became more communicative.

“Yes, very good.  He was all day mending my bicycle, Sunday, and he takes me out in the boat sometimes; and he’s made such a dear little house for the old Angora rabbit.”

“Do you like going out in the boat?”

“Yes, very much.”

“Do you like going out with him?”

“No,” said Maggie, making a little face, half of disgust and half of derision.  “No.  His hands are all dirty, and he smells of fish.”

Majendie laughed.  “There are drawbacks, I must own, to Steve.”

He looked at his watch, an action Maggie hated.  It always suggested finality, departure.

“Ten o’clock, Maggie.  I must be up at six to-morrow.  We sail at seven.”

“At seven,” echoed Maggie in despair.

They were up at six.  Maggie went with him to the creek, to see him sail.  In the garden she picked a chrysanthemum and stuck it in his buttonhole, forgetting that he couldn’t wear her token.  There were so many things he couldn’t do.

A little rain still fell through a clogging mist.  They walked side by side, treading the drenched grass, for the track was too narrow for them both.  Maggie’s feet dragged, prolonging the moments.

A white pointed sail showed through the mist, where the little yacht lay in the river off the mouth of the creek.

Steve was in the boat close against the creek’s bank, waiting to row Majendie to the yacht.  He touched his cap to Majendie as they appeared on the bank, but he did not look at Maggie when her gentle voice called good-morning.

Steve’s face was close-mouthed and hard set.

She put her hands on Majendie’s shoulders and kissed him.  Her cheek against his face was pure and cold, wet with the rain.  Steve did not look at them.  He never looked at them when they were together.

Majendie dropped into the boat.  Steve pushed off from the bank.  Maggie stood there watching them go.  She stood till the boat reached the creek’s mouth, and Majendie turned, and raised his cap to her; stood till the white sail moved slowly up the river and disappeared, rounding the spit of land.

Majendie, as he paced the deck and talked to his men of wind and weather, turned casually, on his heel, to look at her where she stood alone in the level immensity of the land.  The world looked empty all around her.

And he was touched with a sudden poignant realisation of her life; its sadness, its incompleteness, its isolation.