“Ay, ay, miss,” answered old Edward from the beach.  “Come in on the next wave.”

She came in accordingly and her canoe was caught and dragged high and dry.

“What, Miss Beatrice,” said the old man shaking his head and grumbling, “at it again!  Out all alone in that thing,” and he gave the canoe a contemptuous kick, “and in the dark, too.  You want a husband to look after you, you do.  You’ll never rest till you’re drowned.”

“No, Edward,” she answered with a little laugh.  “I don’t suppose that I shall.  There is no peace for the wicked above seas, you know.  Now do not scold.  The canoe is as safe as church in this weather and in the bay.”

“Oh, yes, it’s safe enough in the calm and the bay,” he answered, “but supposing it should come on to blow and supposing you should drift beyond the shelter of Rumball Point there, and get the rollers down on you—­why you would be drowned in five minutes.  It’s wicked, miss, that’s what it is.”

Beatrice laughed again and went.

“She’s a funny one she is,” said the old man scratching his head as he looked after her, “of all the woman folk as ever I knowed she is the rummest.  I sometimes thinks she wants to get drowned.  Dash me if I haven’t half a mind to stave a hole in the bottom of that there damned canoe, and finish it.”

Beatrice reached home a little before supper time.  Her first act was to call Betty the servant and with her assistance to shift her bed and things into the spare room.  With Elizabeth she would have nothing more to do.  They had slept together since they were children, now she had done with her.  Then she went in to supper, and sat through it like a statue, speaking no word.  Her father and Elizabeth kept up a strained conversation, but they did not speak to her, nor she to them.  Elizabeth did not even ask where she had been, nor take any notice of her change of room.

One thing, however, Beatrice learnt.  Her father was going on the Monday to Hereford by an early train to attend a meeting of clergymen collected to discuss the tithe question.  He was to return by the last train on the Tuesday night, that is, about midnight.  Beatrice now discovered that Elizabeth proposed to accompany him.  Evidently she wished to see as little as possible of her sister during this week of truce—­possibly she was a little afraid of her.  Even Elizabeth might have a conscience.

So she should be left alone from Monday morning till Tuesday night.  One can do a good deal in forty hours.

After supper Beatrice rose and left the room, without a word, and they were glad when she went.  She frightened them with her set face and great calm eyes.  But neither spoke to the other on the subject.  They had entered into a conspiracy of silence.