MARIE woke on the Friday morning with the vague feeling that something unpleasant was going to happen.

She lay for a moment looking round the room with sleepy eyes, then suddenly she remembered—they were going back to London!

She sat up in bed, her dark hair falling about her shoulders, and stared at her half-packed luggage.

This was the end of her honeymoon! Nearly a month since she had been married—a month of bitterness and disappointments, with only one bright memory attaching to it—her friendship with Feathers.

And now she was leaving even that behind! She was conscious of a little shrinking fear as she thought of it.

Who would help her through the long days when he was not at hand? She fell back helplessly on her old futile hope.

"I shall be used to it soon! I must get used to living like this soon, surely!"

There would be Aunt Madge, too; It was comforting to think of her, but Marie did not realize that when she married Chris she had burnt her boats behind her, and would never again find happiness or contentment in the simple things that had pleased her before.

Her heart was heavy as she went downstairs; it was a particularly beautiful morning, and her eyes were misty with tears as she looked at the blue sea and the sunlight and realized that to-morrow she would open her eyes on bricks and mortar and smoky London.

Yet it had been her own wish to return. She could have stayed on had she chosen.

97 "Good morning," said Feathers beside her.

She turned quickly, her eyes brightening.

"Am I down before you? It's generally the other way about?"

"Yes, I overslept myself. Where's Chris?"

"I don't think he's up yet."

There was a little silence.

"Are you going by the morning train?" Feathers asked presently.

"No, after lunch, I think; we shall be home about five."

She looked up at him wistfully. "Have you got a headache?" she asked in concern. "You look as if you have."

He laughed.

"No. I don't indulge in such luxuries, but I didn't sleep particularly well last night."

"A guilty conscience?" Marie said, teasingly.

"Probably." He stepped out into the sunny garden. "Shall we go for a stroll, as it's your last morning?"

She followed at once.

"That sounded so horrid," she said, with a half sigh. "My last morning! It sounds as if I were going to be executed or something."

"The last of happy days here, I should have said," Feathers corrected himself gravely. "I hope it will also be the first of many and much happier days to come."

"Thank you." Suddenly she laughed. "Why, it's Friday! I always seem to choose unlucky days to go to places or do important things. I was married on Friday, and I came home from Paris after father died on Friday."

"Well, it's as good a day as any other."

She shook her head.

"Not for me," she said, unthinkingly, then laughed to cover the admission of her words.

"I'm superstitious, you see."

"Absurd!"

"I know it is, and I never used to be."

98 "I don't believe you are now." he declared.

"What are you looking at?" Marie had stood suddenly still, and was looking down on the sands.

The tide was out, and a man and woman were walking along together close to the water's edge.

"It's Chris and Mrs. Heriot," Feathers said quietly. "Shall we go and meet them?"

He turned towards the steps leading down to the shore, but Marie did not move. She was very pale, and the look in her eyes cut him to the heart when he looked at her.

"I don't think I will—I'd rather go back—they haven't seen us," she answered.

She would have turned back the way they had come, but Feathers resolutely barred the way.

"Mrs. Lawless, don't you think it would be much wiser to come along and meet them?" he asked deliberately.

She raised her troubled eyes to his.

"I don't want to . . . why need I? Oh, do you think I must?"

He tried to laugh, as if it were a subject of no importance.

"Why not? They have probably seen us."

He could see refusal in her face; then all at once she gave in.

"Very well." But her steps dragged as she followed him down to the sands, and her face had not regained its color.

Feathers was racking his brains for means whereby to disperse the suspicion which he knew was in her mind. He was cursing Chris with all his heart, even while he was level-headed enough to guess that in all probability his friend's meeting with Mrs. Heriot was entirely one of chance. When they were near enough he called out to them cheerily:

"Now, then, you two, it's breakfast time, so hurry! Mrs. Lawless and I have been right along to the headland."

It was not the truth, but Marie hardly noticed what he said; she 99 was trying desperately to recover her composure and face Mrs. Heriot with a smile.

They walked back to the hotel, the two men behind.

"I am so sorry we are leaving, now it has really come to the point," Marie said. She kept her hands clenched in the pockets of the little woolly coat she wore; she wondered if the elder woman could hear the hardness of her voice.

"I'm ever so sorry, too," Mrs. Heriot said gushingly. "It's the worst of an hotel, isn't it? As soon as one gets to like people they leave."

"One can always meet them again," Marie said deliberately. She was wondering desperately if Chris had already made some such arrangement with this woman.

Mrs. Heriot smiled enigmatically.

"It so seldom happens, though," she said. "Life is so like that book, 'Ships that pass in the night,' don't you think?"

"I haven't read it," Marie said bluntly.

She hated Mrs. Heriot, hated everything about her—her voice, her smile, even her clothes—she hated them all; she went straight in to breakfast without waiting for Chris, and when he joined her she was quite well aware that his eyes were turned to her again and again anxiously.

Directly breakfast was over she turned to go upstairs, but he Followed.

"Where are you going, Marie Celeste?" He tried hard to speak naturally, but he had never felt more uncomfortable in his life; he knew what Marie must be thinking, and he realized that the only explanation he could offer of his early walk with Mrs. Heriot was a very thin one indeed.

She answered without stopping or looking round.

"I am going to finish packing."

"I'll come with you."

She did not answer, and he followed her up to her room.

"Why don't you go and have a swim?" she asked then. "It's a pity to waste the last morning indoors."

100 "I will go if you will come with me," he said at once.

She shook her head.

"No, thank you; I haven't got the nerve."

"You'll be perfectly safe with me; I'll look after you."

She shook her head again.

"No, thank you."

She began walking about the room, folding up the few things she had not already packed and ramming them anyhow into the open trunk.

Chris watched her for a moment with morose eyes; then all at once he blurted out:

"Hang it all! I know what you're thinking, so why don't you say it?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"You do know. Marie, stop walking about and come here."

"I can't; there's a lot to do, and I'm busy."

Chris strode across to her, tore the little frock she was folding from her hands and threw it down on the bed.

"I hate being treated like this!" he said passionately. "I won't have it! If you think I arranged to meet that infernal woman, why the devil can't you say so and have done with it?"

"I don't care if you arranged to meet her or not."

He laughed. "You do! I could see in your face at once that you were angry about it. Come, Marie Celeste, own up!"

He laid his hand on her arm carelessly, but she flung him off; his touch seemed to rouse all her pent-up passion and bitterness; her eyes blazed as she turned and faced him.

"How many more times am I to tell you that I don't care what you do or who you spend your time with? You can go out with Mrs. Heriot all day and every day for all I care. I should stay down here longer, if I were you; there's no need for you to come home."

She was trembling in every limb; she leaned against the end of the bed to steady herself.

Chris had flushed up to his eyes; he had a hot temper once it was 101 aroused, as Marie knew, and something in the way in which she looked at him had roused it now.

He answered as angrily as she that he should choose his own friends, and spend his time as he liked; if she thought he was going to be tied to her apron strings for the rest of his life she was mistaken; he had been used to having his own way, and he was going to continue to have it. Having relieved himself of a few more violent remarks, he calmed down a little, strode over to the window and flung it wide.

"Dash it all," he went on presently, more quietly. "It's no worse than you walking about the whole time with Feathers. I might just as well cut up rough and forbid you to speak to him, but I'm not such a fool; I hope I can trust you." He liked the sound of that last phrase; he thought it exceedingly tactful; he looked round at his wife with a faint smile.

He thought he knew her so well—thought he had sounded every depth and shallow of her nature. All their lives they had had these little breezes, which had blown over almost at once and been forgotten.

He was horrified, therefore, to see Marie standing with her face buried in her hands, her whole slim body shaking with sobs.

Chris stood staring at her helplessly. Marie so seldom cried, it gave him a bad shock to see her so upset—he must have said a great deal more than he had intended. He flushed with angry shame.

"Marie—for heaven's sake!" He went to her and put his arms round her, clumsily, but still with something comforting in their clasp.

"Don't cry, for God's sake!" he begged agitatedly. "What did I say? Whatever it was, I didn't mean it—you know that!" He pressed her head down against his shoulder, keeping his hand on her soft hair.

"Sorry, Marie Celeste!" he said humbly. "I was a brute; it shall never happen again."

She pushed him gently from her, walking away to try and recover herself.

102 "It's all right," she said presently with an effort, her voice broken by little sobbing breaths. "It's all right. Please go away and leave me alone."

She was bitterly ashamed to have broken down before him—he who so hated tears and a scene.

She dried her eyes fiercely and tried to laugh.

"I don't often—cry, you know," she defended herself.

"I know you don't." Chris ran agitated fingers through his hair. "It was my fault. I hope you'll forgive me." He followed her and put an arm round her shoulders.

"Forgive me and forget it, Marie Celeste, will you?"

"It's all forgotten."

He laughed ruefully.

"You say that, but you don't mean it. And really it wasn't my fault this morning. I went out early and met Mrs. Heriot on the sands—I thought she never got up early. I swear to you that it was no fault of mine. I don't care for the woman. I've told you so, haven't I?"

"Yes." She could not explain that it was not ordinary jealousy of Mrs. Heriot that was breaking her heart, but jealousy of the fact that this woman could prove an amusing companion to him, whereas she herself was such a failure. The tears came again in spite of her efforts, and she pressed her hands hard over her eyes in a vain effort to restrain them. "Oh, if you would only go away!" she faltered wildly.

Chris turned away with an impatient sigh; he felt at fault because of his inability to comfort her; he went downstairs and hunted up Feathers.

"Come on out for a walk," he said gruffly.

Feathers looked up from his paper, saw the frown on his friend's face and rose.

"Right-oh! Where is Mrs. Lawless?"

"Packing."

"It seems a pity for her not to get all the air she can, as it's her last morning."

"I asked her to come out, and she refused."

They went out together.

103 Chris walked along, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched dejectedly. Feathers was perfectly well aware that something was wrong, but asked no questions, and presently Chris broke out wrathfully.

"What the devil a man wants to get mixed up with women for I'm hanged if I know."

Feathers was looking out at the sea, and his face changed a little as he asked carelessly:

"Well, who has been getting mixed up with them?"

"No one in particular that I know of! I simply made a remark."

"Oh, I see."

There was a faint sneer in Feathers' voice, and his eyes looked grim; he knew that if he waited Chris would presently explode again, and he was right.

"Marriage," said Chris, with the air of one who has suddenly lighted upon a great and original discovery, "is a damned awful gamble, and that's a fact."

Feathers stopped to knock the ashes from his pipe against a wooden post.

"It's not compulsory, anyway," he said quietly. "After all, men marry to please themselves."

"Or to please someone else," said Chris with a growl.

There was a little silence.

"Or for money," said Feathers deliberately.

Chris stopped to kick a pebble off the promenade to the sands below, and he answered his friend gloomily:

"Nobody but a fool would marry a woman for her money."

Feathers stared. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it again with a little snap.

After all, what use was it to raise an argument? He did not want to quarrel with Chris, and yet he knew that he had never had a better reason for so doing.

"When are you coming back to town?" Chris asked after a moment.

"Don't know; haven't made up my mind yet." Feathers looked at Chris quizzically. "Suppose you'll rather drop out of things now, eh?" he asked.

Chris stared.

104 "Drop out? Good Lord, no!" he flushed angrily. "What do you mean— because I happen to have got married?"

"It generally makes a difference." Feathers said lightly.

"Not in my case. Marie's a sensible girl—dash it! I've known her all my life."

"Yes, that's the trouble."

"What the deuce do you mean?"

"I mean that you're rather apt to lose sight of the fact that she's no longer a kind of sister to you, but a wife," Feathers said quietly. "Also, I suppose that when you were kids together she spoilt you like the devil, and it looks as if she means to go on spoiling you."

Chris laughed in amusement.

"Spoils me—Marie spoils me! That's good!" He really thought it was. Like most men whose chief ambition it is to see that they get their own way no matter at what inconvenience to others, he was quite unconscious of the fact; he really thought he was rather an unselfish man; he certainly considered that perhaps with the exception of the little scene this morning when he had lost his temper he had treated Marie rather well.

"You don't understand women, my dear chap," he said cheerily.

Feathers looked at him squarely.

"Do you?" he asked.

Chris looked rather nonplussed.

"Well, perhaps I don't," he admitted. "And perhaps I don't want to. I prefer a man's company any day to a woman's, you know that— except Marie's, of course," he added hastily.

There was a little silence.

"What do you think of my wife, anyway?" he asked, with a rather forlorn attempt at jocularity.

"What do I think of her?" Feathers echoed. "Well—she's all right," he added lamely. He stopped, and bared his head to the cool sea breeze. "Hadn't we better turn back?" he asked.

They strolled back to the hotel together; a perspiring porter was 105 staggering across the lounge with Marie's luggage. Chris' portmanteau and suit-case stood already by the door.

"We're not going till after lunch," Chris said, "They turn you out of your rooms in a hurry, don't they? I wonder where Marie is?"

"She's sitting over there in the window." Feathers answered.

He had seen Marie as soon as they entered the lounge—seen something in her face, too, that pierced his heart like a knife as he turned deliberately and walked away from her.

He had been prepared to dislike Christopher's wife, because he had thought she would rob him of his friend, but in the last three weeks something seemed to have played pitch and toss with all his preconceived ideas of marriage and women.

He went out into the garden, and stayed there until he knew that lunch must be almost finished, then he strolled in.

Chris and his wife were in the lounge, dressed for traveling. Marie was looking anxiously towards the door as he came slowly forward and her wistful face lightened as she saw him.

"Where have you been?" Chris demanded. "We're just off, you old rotter."

"I didn't know it was so late." He looked at Marie. "I hope you'll have a pleasant journey back," he said. The words sounded absurdly formal and unlike him, and the girl's face flushed in faint perplexity.

"Thank you, I hope we shall."

There was a taxi at the door, piled with luggage; Mrs. Heriot was close by, dressed in a very smart tweed costume, and with her golf clubs slung over her shoulder.

She looked at Chris commiseratingly.

"You poor dear, going back to smoky old London! Don't you wish you were coming out on the downs with me?"

106 Chris laughed, and held out his hand.

"Good-bye, Mrs. Heriot. Good-bye and—what do people say?—until our next merry meeting!"

She shook hands with Marie.

"Good-bye, you dear thing, and I'm so glad you're so much better."

Feathers was standing by the door of the taxi, his rather shabby slouch hat tilted over his eyes, his hands thrust into his pockets.

Marie turned to him.

"Good-bye, Mr. Dakers."

"Good-bye, Mrs. Lawless." He shook her hand in his big paw, squeezed it and let it go, standing back to make room for Chris.

Several of the hotel visitors who had been rather friendly with Chris came clustering for a last word.

"See you in town, old chap—cherio! Don't forget to look me up! You've got my address."

The taxi-driver interposed.

"You ain't got too much time for the train, sir."

"Right-oh! Good-bye." The taxicab wheeled about and out into the road. A sudden mist blurred Marie's eyes as she turned in her seat for a last look. She had been unhappy here, and yet—something within her shrank from the thought of leaving it all behind. She had grown to dread the future. In her nervous, apprehensive state she had no hope that this fresh step would be for the better, and she shrank from further pain and disappointment.

When the cab had vanished down the road Mrs. Heriot turned to Feathers.

"You haven't had any lunch," she said.

"No, no, I'm not hungry," he said absently.

He walked away from the door and into the hotel. The lounge was crowded with people, laughing and chattering together, and as he passed the inquiry desk he heard one of the clerks say:

"We shan't have a room vacant for three weeks. I don't remember when we were so full."

Was the hotel full! Feathers turned and looked round the crowded 107 lounge as he went slowly up the stairs to his room; strange that it seemed more empty and deserted to him than ever before.

* * * * * * * * * *