DIRECTLY Chris had gone Marie opened her door, which he had shut after him, and ran downstairs.

The lounge was almost deserted. Most of the visitors were dressing for dinner, but Feathers was lounging against the open swing door which led into the garden.

His hands were deep thrust into his pockets and he was looking out over the sea with moody eyes.

Marie ran up to him breathlessly. "Mr. Dakers——"

He turned at once. "Yes." He noticed the flushed agitation of her face. "Is anything the matter?" he asked in swift concern.

"Yes! I mean no! Oh, it's nothing much, at any rate, but—but I told Chris you were going to take me to a concert to-night, that you had got two tickets . . ." She broke off agitatedly, only to rush on again. "Of course, I know you're not! I only just said it, but—but if he asks you—oh, you wouldn't mind not telling him, would you?"

Feathers looked utterly mystified, but she was too much in earnest for him to smile, so he said quietly:

"There is rather a good show on the pier, so I'm told, I'll get some tickets and we'll go."

She flushed all over her face and her lips quivered.

"I know it's horrid of me, and I can't explain; there isn't any need for you to take me at all, really, but . . . but I knew Chris wanted to play billiards——" She broke off, she had said more than she intended.

65 Feathers laughed. "Chris is a goth! I like music, and I'm sure you do, so we'll snap our fingers at him and go to the concert."

"You don't really want to! You wouldn't have thought of it, if I hadn't said anything," she stammered.

"I've often thought of it," he maintained quietly. "If the truth must be told, I'm very fond of music, so it will be a kindness if you will let me pretend that I'm only going to please you."

There was a little silence, then Marie slipped her hand into his with a long sigh of relief.

"Oh, you are a dear," she said, and fled away before he could answer.

She went up to her own room and hurried with her dressing. She did not want to go to the concert in the very least. It had cost her a great deal to refuse Chris' offer of that moonlit walk, but in her heart she knew that he had only suggested it as reparation for his forgetfulness of last night, and her pride would not allow her to accept.

If he had wished to go with her he would not have forgotten. She knew Chris well enough to know that he never forgot a thing that he wished to remember, and there was a little choking lump of misery in her throat as she hurriedly changed her frock.

Chris was very punctilious about dressing for dinner. It was one of his pet snobberies, so Feathers declared, for Feathers himself had a fine disregard of appearances and of what people thought.

But to-night even he struggled into a dinner jacket, and half- strangled himself in a high collar in honor of Marie. At dinner Chris chaffed him mercilessly across the space that divided their tables.

"You'll be putting brilliantine on your hair next," he said. "Not that it would be much use!" he added dryly.

"I think his hair looks very nice," said Marie Celeste. She did not think so, but she was so grateful to him for haying rushed into the breach for her to-night that she looked upon him through rose- tinted glasses.

66 Feathers smiled grimly, meeting her eyes.

"Mrs. Lawless, may you be forgiven!" he said solemnly. "And may I also remind you that if you want to be in time for the show, you'll have to go without the water ice which I see they promise us as the final tit-bit on the menu."

"I hate water ices," Marie declared. "And I'm quite ready when you are." She looked at her husband.

"Don't wait for me, my child," said Chris. "Run away and amuse yourself."

Marie rose from the table quietly.

"I'll just get my coat," she said to Feathers. She walked down the room between the crowded tables, the eyes of both men following her.

She made a pathetic little figure, so Feathers thought, and was angry with himself for the thought. He did not want to think of her as unhappy. He could not imagine why he always read sadness in her face.

He turned to Chris. "Why don't you come with us?" he asked abruptly.

Chris opened his eyes in faint astonishment.

"What! Be penned up in a stuffy concert hall all the evening?" he said.

"My dear chap, it's no worse than the billiard room." Feathers answered irascibly. "You spend too much of your time there."

Chris looked at him in utter amazement; then he laughed.

"Is it a joke or what?" he asked helplessly.

Feathers pushed back his chair rather violently and rose.

"Think it over," he said curtly, and walked out of the room.

Chris did think it over. He went out on to the sea front, and stared at the sea, and wondered what on earth his friend had been driving at. He did not at all like the way in which Feathers had looked at him or the tone of voice in which he had spoken. As a rule, everyone looked upon Chris with approval. He threw his half- smoked cigarette over the sea wall on to the sand, and with morose 67 eyes, watched it consume away.

He was not going to be lectured by Feathers, old friends as they were! He began to feel himself distinctly ill-used.

Now he came to think of it it was pretty cool of him to take Marie Celeste off to a concert and leave him to shift for himself. He was not at all sure that he was being fairly treated.

"A penny for your thoughts." said Mrs. Heriot beside him, and he started from his reverie and laughed.

"Nothing. I was just wondering about something, that's all."

He was really rather glad to see her. It was dusk out there on the sea front, and Mrs. Heriot always looked her best in a half-light, as do most women who take the tint of their hair and complexion out of a box.

She was dressed in black, too. It suited her admirably, and there was a fluffy white fur round her throat and shoulders which rather appealed to Chris.

Feathers had knocked a corner off his complacency, and he was just in a mood to accept the soothing flattery which Mrs. Heriot knew to a nicety how to administer.

"I've never seen you look so cross before," she challenged him. "What is the matter and where is Mrs. Lawless?"

"She's gone to a concert."

"Oh, yes, with Mr. Dakers! I saw them going along the road together Just now." She paused. "You don't care for music, I suppose?"

"Not particularly."

"Neither do I. I don't think people who are very keen on games are ever fond of music and artistic things like that, do you?"

"Perhaps not," he agreed.

She drew the feathery wrap closer round her throat.

"Isn't it a heavenly night? What shall we do?"

Chris laughed rather grimly. "I've nothing to do. I'm quite at your service."

"Really?" Her eyes were bright it the half-light. "Well, then, 68 shall we take a boat and row out to meet the moon?"

"Meet the moon!" Chris echoed blankly.

She laughed. "Yes, isn't that what romantic people do? I know I'm not a romantic person, but I'm going to pretend to be, just for one night——"

She laid her hand on his arm. "Do! It will be such fun."

Her excitement was rather infectious, and after the smallest hesitation Chris yielded.

"Oh, all right. Can we get a boat?"

"Of course we can." She kept her hand through his arm as they went down the sands to look for an old boatman from whom Mrs. Heriot declared she had often hired boats before.

"Do ye want me to come along with yer?" he asked, as he dragged a skiff down to the water's edge.

Mrs. Heriot laughed and looked at Chris.

"Do we want Charon to row us on the Styx?" she asked.

Chris made a wry little face.

"I think we might be able to manage without his help," he said.

He gave her his hand and followed her into the skiff.

It was a perfect night. There was hardly a ripple on the water, and the moon was rising in a gleam half-circle above the horizon.

Mrs. Heriot dabbled her hand in the cool water, and her diamond rings glittered like sparks of fire.

"Now, isn't this better than that horrid, stuffy old billiard room?" she asked presently.

Chris frowned, and his friend's words, which he had forgotten for the moment, came back with worrying insistence.

"It's no worse than the billiard room. . . . You spend too much of your time there. . . ."

What the deuce had Feathers meant?

"Did you hear what I said?" Mrs. Heriot demanded, and he roused himself with an effort.

"I heard—yes!"

69 "And don't you agree?"

Chris temporized. "Well, there's more air out here," he said.

She laughed lightly. "How you do hate to agree with anyone," she said. She leaned back and looked up at the sky.

"This reminds me of the nights in India," she said suddenly.

Chris made no comment, and she went on.

"It seems as if my life out there must all have been in another world."

"Time passes so quickly, doesn't it?" said Chris absently.

He had never seen her in this mood before, and it rather bored him.

"I went out as soon as I was married," she went on, taking it for granted that he was interested. "I was—oh, so young—younger than Mrs. Lawless, I should think!" She laughed rather bitterly. "I thought I was going to be 'happy ever after,' as the story books have it, when I got married." She shrugged her shoulders. "That's what comes of marrying for money."

"You are very candid," Chris said amusedly.

"I am; I think it always pays, don't you?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I haven't thought about it."

"I have! And I know that people don't like me because I always say what I think."

"Don't they!" He drew in the sculls a little and, resting on them, fumbled for his cigarette case.

There was a little smile on his face. Mrs. Heriot was amusing him now, though unconsciously.

She stretched out a white hand. "Give me a cigarette." Chris handed her his case, but she waved it away. "Don't be so ungallant! Light it for me."

He did as she asked.

"Does your wife smoke?" she asked abruptly.

"No." He bent to the sculls again. "I'm afraid she's not very modern."

She caught up the word quickly. "Afraid!"

70 Chris frowned. "I should have said 'glad,' perhaps." He corrected himself rather shortly.

Mrs. Heriot looked at him in silence for a moment, then she said, energetically: "Don't let marriage turn you into a bore, Chris!"

"A bore!" He was so amazed that he dropped his cigarette. "Yes." She smiled teasingly. "It does that with most men, you know."

"I think I can promise you it will not do that with me," he said rather warmly. "I have always loathed the idea of ordinary married life, staying at home night after night, tied to a woman's apron strings, dropping all one's pals . . ." He broke off, coloring warmly. He had said a great deal more than he had intended, and he knew that she had purposely led him on to do so. "Don't you think we had better be getting back?" he asked rather curtly.

"What, already?" she laughed, and, bending forward, looked at a small jewelled watch on her wrist. "Why, it's not nine!" She turned and looked out over the smooth sea. "Let's row out to that boat," she said suddenly. She indicated a small anchored fishing smack with furled sails that looked like a fairy ship in the path of the moonlight.

"We can get on board if there is nobody there. Do! It will be such fun!"

Chris had the uncomfortable feeling that she expected him to refuse, and because he made it a rule never to do what he knew was expected of him he agreed. He pulled the little skiff about and made for the anchored boat.

There was a light on her mast and a lantern tied to her bow, but apparently she was deserted.

Mrs. Heriot made a cup of her hands and called a long "Coo-ee."

"There's nobody on board," she said. "Go closer to her, Chris."

When they were near enough she stretched out her hand and caught at a rope hanging loosely at the side of the ship.

71 "It's a ladder!" she said excitedly. "Oh, we must go on board. It's so romantic!"

"It's a fishing smack—it will be horribly dirty probably," Chris objected.

She was standing up, holding to its side.

"Of course it won't be." She looked around at him. "I believe you don't want to come," she said laughing.

Chris drew in the sculls without another word and stood up.

"If you're so bent on trespassing," he said, and held out his hand.

They scrambled on board together and looked round. The ship was quite deserted and rocking gently on the smooth water. Mrs. Heriot clapped her hands like a delighted child. She was quite a good actress when she was in the mood and given the right environment.

"Isn't this lovely? It reminds me of the days when we used to hide in ruined castles when we were children."

She spoke as if ruined castles were to be met with in every street of every suburban town.

"There's not much of a ruined castle about this," said Chris. He was not at all amused. He thought the whole adventure silly, which merely showed that he was not with the right woman and not interested in the woman he was with.

The moon was high in the sky, and the twinkling lights of the town looked a long way off, though very faintly in the distance they could hear the sound of the band playing on the pier.

Chris listened apathetically, then suddenly he spoke.

"It must be late. They're playing 'God Save the King.'"

He looked at his watch—it was half-past ten.

"It's time we went back," he said. He wondered uncomfortably what Feathers would say if he could see him now.

He went back to the side of the fishing smack where he had left the skiff, then he stifled an oath, for the painter he had fastened 72 loosely to the rope-ladder had come untied and the skiff had drifted away.

Mrs. Heriot uttered a shrill scream when she saw what had happened. She was really not in the least frightened; she loved sensation and what she was pleased to call "thrills" and it was rather exciting to find herself in such a predicament with a man as good-looking and difficult as Christopher Lawless.

"Whatever shall we do?" she demanded in horror, and then, with a quick glance at his face: "Oh, you don't think that I let the boat go on purpose?"

She had not done so, but probably would have done had it occurred to her. Chris answered vehemently that such an idea had never entered his head, which was the truth. He was far too indifferent and unsuspecting to credit her with such an action.

"But what on earth are we to do?" she asked again, and Chris laughed rather mirthlessly.

"I must swim out and bring it back, of course,"

He took off his coat as he spoke and Mrs. Heriot screamed afresh.

"You might be drowned! The water looks awful in the moonlight! What will become of me here alone if anything happens to you?"

"Nothing will happen to me or you," said Chris impatiently, "and we can't stay here all night, can we?"

He shook off her detaining hand and clambered up the ship's side.

Mrs. Heriot hid her face.

"I shall go mad if anything happens to you," she said hysterically.

Chris dived without answering.

He came up breathless and spluttering. The water was very cold, and he was hampered by his clothes, but he got hold of the skiff and dragged it back to the ship's side, clambering up again by the rope ladder.

"You'll take your death of cold," said Mrs. Heriot tragically, but she did not attempt to touch him again. In his drenched condition he did not look very romantic with his collar as limp as muslin and 73 his hair plastered down on his forehead.

"It was so brave of you," she murmured.

"It was folly ever to have come," Chris said. He steadied the skiff while she climbed back into it, then he followed and pushed off.

"What in the world will people say?" Mrs. Heriot asked hysterically.

Chris looked at her; his teeth were chattering a little.

"What can they say? It was an accident."

"I know, but they won't believe it. People are so uncharitable."

His face darkened.

"I don't understand you."

She looked a little ashamed.

"It is so late, and for you and I—to be out here alone . . ."

Chris pulled harder at the sculls; he knew there was something in what she said, but he answered doggedly:

"They must believe what they choose, that's all."

She covered her face with her hands.

"I can't face it," she whispered. "I've always hated scandal. And . . . oh, what will your wife think, Chris?"

Chris bit his lip; he had forgotten Marie.

"She will believe what I tell her," he answered at last quietly. "And if you prefer it I can land you further down the beach away from the hotel, so that nobody will know we were together. I dare say I can get in and change my things without being seen."

She broke out into gushing thanks.

"I never thought of that! Of course, it will be all Right! Nobody saw us come out together. I can go in through the garden door."

"Very well." He did not speak again until they were close in shore. Then he said: "I can beach her here—you will not mind going back to the hotel alone?"

"Oh, no—but, Chris . . . you can't, you simply mustn't tell your wife."

He looked up at her with cold eyes.

"I don't understand you,"

74 "I know you don't, because you're so nice, so straight. But can't you see—on your honeymoon! It will look so bad, and I'm sure she will be jealous. People with dark eyes like hers are always dreadfully jealous." Her eyes fell before his steady gaze. "She will hate me," she whispered. "And I don't deserve it—you know that."

There was a little silence, then——

"Very well," said Chris shortly. "I will not tell her." He waited till she was safely up the beach, then he pulled out to sea again, and came ashore lower down. The owner of the boat was not to be seen, and Chris tied it up securely and ran for the hotel. If only it had been a dark night, he thought as he ran. The cursed moon made everything so light; but he got into the garden without being seen, by keeping well in the shadow of trees and bushes, and had almost reached the door when he ran right into Feathers.

Chris swore under his breath. He would have gone on without speaking, but Feathers caught his arm.

"Hullo!" And then: "Good Lord, Chris, you're soaking wet. Not another accident, surely? Who have you pulled out—this time?"

"Myself. I went out in a skiff and the damned thing upset."

He told the lie badly and, conscious of the fact, he went on hurriedly: "Here, I want to change. I'm as cold as blazes. You needn't say anything to Marie—it will only upset her."

Feathers stood aside silently and Chris went up to his room.

He had never felt so uncomfortable in his life. He had a hot bath before he got into dry clothes.

Moonlight might be romantic, and all the rest of it, he told himself, but a moonlight bath was not exactly pleasant.

He cursed Mrs. Heriot under his breath and his own folly; he could not imagine what had possessed him to go out with her; he congratulated himself for having bluffed Feathers, for he knew Feathers hated Mrs. Heriot.

75 He rang for a hot whisky and went to Marie's room. He could hear her moving about inside, and tapped at the door.

"Come in!"

He turned the handle. He wondered if he could explain things to her as effectually as he had done to Feathers; somehow he rather doubted it—Marie had a way of looking into his very soul.

She still wore the frock she had worn at dinner that night, and was sitting at the window looking out at the moonlight.

Chris went forward.

"Did you think I'd got lost?" he asked lightly. He stood beside her, leaning his shoulder against the window-frame.

"Did you play billiards, after all?" Marie asked. She did not answer his question.

She was sitting with her back to the light, or he might have seen the tear-stains on her face.

"No." He looked away from her and up at the moon with vindictive eyes. "I took a skiff out and got upset" He laughed awkwardly.

"Got upset!" Her voice was full of alarm. "Oh, Chris, you might have been drowned!"

"When I was born to be hanged?" he queried. "Never, my child; but it was a cold bath I can tell you. I had to change and make myself presentable before I came to you. Well—how did you enjoy the concert?"

"Very much." She told him a little about it; she had not enjoyed it a bit; her thoughts had been with him all the time, but she would have died rather than let him guess it.

His handsome eyes searched her face; she looked wonderfully sweet and dainty in the moonlight, and with sudden impulse he stooped and took her hand.

"It's a queer sort of honeymoon, Marie Celeste," he said rather hoarsely.

He felt the little hand tremble in his and then suddenly lie very still, but she did not speak, and he went on with an effort to get 76 away from the something tragic of which he was vaguely conscious.

"Are you sorry yet that you married me?"

She shook her head, "Of course not."

He let her hand go, chilled by her words.

"There are heaps of other fellows in the world—better than I, who would have made you happier," he said.

She laughed at that; a little broken laugh of amusement.

"There is nobody else I would have married," she said faintly.

"You say that now, but you're such a kid! In a year or so you'll think very differently."

"Perhaps you will, too," she told him with trembling lips.

Chris laughed scornfully.

"I! I've never been a woman's man, you know that."

She did know it, and was glad to know it. It was the one small ray of hope in her darkness that if he did not love her at least he had never loved anybody else.

She gave a long sigh of weariness.

"You're tired," said Chris, quickly. "I'll go. Don't sit by the window any more. It's getting cold, and you've got to be careful, you know."

"Very well," she said, as she rose obediently, and he drew the window down. They looked at one another silently, then Chris said:

"Good-night, Marie Celeste."

"Good-night." Her voice was almost inaudible, and, moved by some impulse he could not explain, Chris laid his hands on her shoulders.

"Kiss me—will you?"

She turned her face away sharply.

"I'd—I'd rather not."

"Very well. Good-night."

He went out of the room without another word, and Marie stood where he had left her, staring helplessly at the closed door.

He had asked her to kiss him and she had refused—refused, though 77 her whole heart and soul had longed to say "yes."

Had she been wrong? She did not know. She had tried so hard all along to do only the best thing for his happiness, and yet she had been miserably conscious of the hurt in his face as she turned her own away.

Should she go after him and ask him to come back? She longed, yet feared to go. Perhaps he would only kiss her in the old careless way as a brother might have done, and it was not that sort of kiss she wanted.

Half a loaf is better than no bread! The old proverb floated mockingly before her. But half a loaf was no good to her, starving for love as she was; better die, she thought passionately, than have anything less than all.

Twice she went to the door and turned the handle, but each time she came back again to pace the room restlessly.

He had not really wanted to kiss her, or he would not have asked. He would have taken it without waiting for so poor a thing as her permission. Her cheeks burned as she thought of this humiliating fortnight which people were calling her "honeymoon."

She had hardly seen Chris—it was Feathers who had been her chief companion—good, kind Feathers, with his ugly face and his heart of gold. Did he know, she wondered, what sort of a marriage hers was? If so, he had never let her guess by word or look that he knew, and once more she fell back on her old desperate hope.

"I shall get used to it—I must get used to it."

She had been married a fortnight now—only fourteen days—but they seemed like years. The pain had not lessened, and the weary, aching disappointment was still as keen.

And sudden revolt rose in her mind. She had as much right to her happiness as anyone else. After all, what was the use of straining after the unattainable? Why not take what the gods gave and be thankful?

She opened the door again and looked out on to the landing; she knew that Chris' room was the one next to hers, with a 78 communicating door which she had locked on her side.

The outer door was not quite closed now, and she could see a thin streak of light through the opening.

She drew the door of her room to behind her and stood there in the subdued light of the passage, her heart beating fast, her lips quivering nervously.

She had put out her hand tremblingly to knock at his door when suddenly she heard his voice from within, speaking angrily:

"Look here. I'm not going to be lectured by you and that's final! The Lord only knows why you've suddenly climbed into the pulpit like this. If you say you saw me with Mrs. Heriot it's no use denying it, but it's nothing to do with you, and I'll thank you to mind your own confounded business. It was an accident that the skiff drifted away, I tell you! And it's a darned lucky thing I could swim, or we should have been left on that infernal boat all night! And then you would have had something to talk about, but as it is . . ." he broke off, and there followed the angry slamming of a drawer.

Then Feathers spoke, quite quietly, and without any anger.

"It's no use losing your temper, Chris. It was the merest chance that I happened to see you. As you say, it's no business of mine, but as Mrs. Heriot is the class of woman she is, I say that you ought to tell your wife the truth. You can't trust Mrs. Heriot— she'll make the devil's own mischief one of these days."

Chris said "Rot!" with violence. "What do you mean, 'the class of woman Mrs. Heriot is'?—she's a friend of mine."

He did not care in the least what Feathers said of Mrs. Heriot, but the sheer "cussedness" of his nature drove him to defend her; if Feathers had adopted the other attitude Chris would have veered round instantly.

But for once Feathers forgot to be tactful. He was burning with anger against his friend, more for Marie's sake than for any other reason; he could not understand the circumstances of this marriage at all, though little by little he was beginning to see that there 79 was nothing of real affection about it.

He said again vehemently: "It's your duty to tell Mrs. Lawless the truth! Supposing somebody else saw you besides myself? A nice garbled version of it she might hear! It could be worked up properly, I can tell you—moonlight night, and you two out there on an empty yacht, or smack, or whatever it was."

He laughed cynically. "What the devil you want to knock about with that woman for, beats me! She's made up, she's bad form, she's everything objectionable."

Chris laughed defiantly. He was furious at being hauled over the coals in such a manner, more especially as Feathers had never made the slightest attempt to do such a thing before.

"She amuses me, anyway," he said, violently. "She doesn't bore me to death, as the rest of her sex do, and you can put that in your pipe and smoke it."

The rest of her sex. The words hammered themselves into the numbed brain of poor little Marie Celeste as she stood there in the passage, not daring to move.

The rest of her sex. That included her then—that must include her! Oh, how could he be so cruel! How could he, when she loved him with every beat of her heart?

She crept back into her room, feeling as if her husband's harsh words had been actual whips, beating her and bruising her.

He not only did not love her, but he preferred Mrs. Heriot! He had been out there with her on the moonlit sea, while she . . . Marie Celeste fell face downwards on the bed, crushing her face into the pillow so that her broken-hearted sobbing might not penetrate the locked door and reach her husband's ears. He hated tears so much! Scenes always made him so angry.

80