Her start could hardly have been more sudden had I asked her where Alan was a few moments after he had been seen playing at the cliff's edge.

"Audrey Cunningham? She was at Harrogate last, I think—or Scarboro—why?"

"Why was her engagement broken off?"

She made an abrupt, impatient gesture. Evidently I had plunged her back into an older mood.

"Oh, I don't know! I'm tired to death of—of everything! Why do you want to remind me of it? I was just beginning to forget a little. Oh, why didn't we leave London a week earlier! We nearly did—Philip was only waiting for Billy to get those pictures back—we should have escaped everything then!"

I soothed her. "Yes; but about the engagement. I could make very little of your letter. You said things were tangled and difficult and so on. What did you mean, Mollie?"

She was silent.

"Do you mean that you won't discuss Mrs. Cunningham with me?"

Still she did not speak.

"Because you have discussed her. I had your letter. You said you'd heard from her. That was since you last saw her. What happened in between?"

She found her voice. "Nothing that I know, except that it seems to have been definitely off."

"By that do you mean that she returned Monty's ring?"

"She didn't say what she did with the ring."

"Well, she neither returned it nor kept it. I have it. I don't want it. Will you take it?"

I fetched it from my pocket and held it out to her.

Her hand found my sleeve, almost as if that brilliance underfoot unsteadied her head. Her eyes had closed and there was a little hard crumple between her brows. I put my other hand on her shoulder.

"Let's get up the beach—this is too dazzling—it's making you dizzy," I said.

Faintly she murmured, "Yes—it does get in your eye——"