own weakness.  But she passed some very bitter hours before she sent for her baby, Betty, and the dogs, and definitely took up life in her little house again.  His debts had been paid, including the thousand pounds to Rosek, and the losses of Daphne Wing.  The girl had gone down to that cottage where no one had ever heard of her, to pass her time in lonely grief and terror, with the aid of a black dress and a gold band on her third finger.

August and the first half of September were spent near Bude.  Fiorsen’s passion for the sea, a passion Gyp could share, kept him singularly moderate and free from restiveness.  He had been thoroughly frightened, and such terror is not easily forgotten.  They stayed in a farmhouse, where he was at his best with the simple folk, and his best could be charming.  He was always trying to get his “mermaid,” as he took to calling Gyp, away from the baby, getting her away to himself, along the grassy cliffs and among the rocks and yellow sands of that free coast.  His delight was to find every day some new nook where they could bathe, and dry themselves by sitting in the sun.  And very like a mermaid she was, on a seaweedy rock, with her feet close together in a little pool, her fingers combing her drowned hair, and the sun silvering her wet body.  If she had loved him, it would have been perfect.  But though, close to nature like this—­there are men to whom towns are poison—­he was so much more easy to bear, even to like, her heart never opened to him, never fluttered at his voice, or beat more quickly under his kisses.  One cannot regulate these things.  The warmth in her eyes when they looked at her baby, and the coolness when they looked at him, was such that not even a man, and he an egoist, could help seeing; and secretly he began to hate that tiny rival, and she began to notice that he did.

As soon as the weather broke, he grew restless, craving his violin, and they went back to town, in robust health—­all three.  During those weeks, Gyp had never been free of the feeling that it was just a lull, of forces held up in suspense, and the moment they were back in their house, this feeling gathered density and darkness, as rain gathers in the sky after a fine spell.  She had often thought of Daphne Wing, and had written twice, getting in return one naive and pathetic answer: 

’Dear Mrs. Fiorsen,

’Oh, it is kind of you to write, because I know what you must be feeling about me; and it was so kind of you to let me come here.  I try not to think about things, but of course I can’t help it; and I don’t seem to care what happens now.  Mother is coming down here later on.  Sometimes I lie awake all night, listening to the wind.  Don’t you think the wind is the most melancholy thing in the world?  I wonder if I shall die?  I hope I shall.  Oh, I do, really!  Good-bye, dear Mrs. Fiorsen.  I shall never forgive myself about you.

’Your grateful,