"We ought to have gone over to-day," said Eustace Gordon, looking out to where the low sandy line of Eilean-a-fa-ash lay like a golden clasp between the two headlands. The northern one bold, rocky, heathery; the southern, a mere spit of bent-covered shingle, curving hornlike from the great sweep of the GrÂda Sands beyond. It was sunset,--a cloudless sunset. Sky, and sea, and sand, bathed in a golden flood of light; only the shallow stretches of water left behind by the retreating tide glowing iridescent here and there like jewels. Far away, almost beyond sight, an edge of foam keeping time to a whispering cadence told where the Atlantic was hushing the shore to sleep.

"Yes!" he went on lazily. "We ought, but we didn't. That fellow Weeks is always on the slay."

They were seated, a party of five,--for the professor still lingered in the grip of cold,--on the base of the northern headland. There, amongst the rocks and heather, Lady Maud and Cynthia Strong had been making tea for the shooters. A brace of setters lay panting beside the game-bags; a faint whiff of smoke from behind a boulder told that the ghillies were enjoying themselves on their master's tobacco--sure sign of a good day's sport.

"Gorgeous weather," continued the same contented voice, "a whole week of it; simply idyllic."

"Ever since Mr. Wilson and the others left," assented Rick Halmar. "Pity they went, isn't it?"

"Mr. Wilson had to go," put in Lady Maud. "The telegram from the works was urgent, and then the Collinghams' yacht happening to come in the same day made it so convenient. Quite a coincidence; one of those things no one could have foreseen." She spoke impatiently, almost in an aggrieved tone; and Eustace, as he lay on his back staring up into the sky, smiled to himself.

"It is very curious how such things happen," remarked Cynthia Strong; "but that they are comparatively common is indubitable. The very proverbs in our language prove it." In the professor's absence she was apt to assume the mantle of his manner in order to annihilate poor Captain Weeks, in which object she generally succeeded. On this occasion, however, emboldened by a recent reception of some golden plovers' wings, for which her new tweed hat had been waiting, he ventured to put in his oar. "The wish is father to the thought, for instance."

"Nothing of the kind--" began Miss Strong scornfully; but Lady Maud rose hastily and, standing a little apart, looked at Eilean-a-fa-ash, her hand shading her eyes.

"Let us settle to go there to-morrow without fail," she said as if to change the subject.

"Not to-morrow, please," broke in Rick eagerly. "To-morrow is Fast Day, and none of the ghillies will do a hand's turn. Besides, I have to drive Aunt Will to the preaching, as uncle won't. Put it off till the next day, Lady Maud. To begin with, it's my birthday, and then the tides are full spring. So we could come back by the sea ford. It is worth doing; nearly two miles with quicksands on either side, especially to the south."

"Very well, the day after to-morrow; that is, Friday certain; or some other coincidence will be carrying off the rest of my party." Still with her hand shading her eyes, she remained looking seawards, much in the same attitude as she had stood at the window a month before. This time her slight figure showed against the gold of sea and sky.

"What is that," she asked, "like a mast--yonder and from the headland?"

Rick, busy as usual with his knife, did not pause to look. "It is a mast, Lady Maud. There is a wreck just to the south. Went ashore ever so long ago, but it is useful still as a sign-post. Up to that spar the sand is pretty safe--most times. Beyond that--by George! you should see it when the tide is coming in."

"Oh! I don't mean the spar close in--yonder, far away."

He came and stood by her. "A yacht, I think, making, I should say, for Carbost. Come to carry some of us away, maybe."

"If it's for me," remarked Eustace, joining them, "I don't intend to go. This is too good a time to be cut short. I haven't had such a good one since those old days at Lynmouth, Maud! And you too! Why, you are looking twice as well as you did--a week ago." There was meaning in his words; more in his eyes.

"Fine weather always agrees with me," she replied hastily. "Come, Rick, let us pick up the tea things and start home."

Yet in her heart of hearts she knew that Eustace was right. That past week had been a paradise of relief, and now it came perilously near to the time when the problem of her life must be faced. She had driven round it so far, had turned back deliberately when she found it barring the road, had claimed time to understand the position. What had she done towards a decision? Nothing! Nothing save bask in the immediate freedom; rejoice like any child in the fine weather, in Rick's open adoration, in her cousin's constant companionship.

As she and the boy walked homewards together, these thoughts came again and again, whilst her nervous fingers busied themselves mechanically with the silver ring which he had made for her; a growing habit of which she was not aware.

"Does it hurt you?" he asked tenderly. "I can easily alter it, if it does."

She shook her head with a faint smile.

"But I have seen you do that so often lately," he persisted; "perhaps the inside is not quite smooth. Give it me, please, and I will set it right by Friday."

"Don't trouble. If it hurts, I can always take it off; can't I, dear?" There was a sudden passion in her tone, a kind of pitiful reproach in her eyes. Rick looked at her, perturbed.

"But if it hurts--" he began.

She put out her pretty hand and laid it on his, almost with a protecting gesture. "Nothing you could do would hurt me, Rick. You said so the first time we met, and it is true. If it hurts, it is my own fault."

"That doesn't make any difference," he replied stoutly. "Let me have it, please."

"Not to-day--on Friday, perhaps; if it hurts."

They were standing where the cross-path branched to Eval, waiting for the others to come up; for Rick's way lay across the moor and she would be left alone.

"I believe it does hurt now," he said, still dissatisfied, "and I know I could set it right. Do let me try."

"How serious you are!" she cried with a sudden change of mood. "See! I promise to give it back on Friday if it hurts. It shall be my birthday present. There!"

"All right. I'll keep it for yours; then we shall be quits," he said, laughing.

When he had left them, Eustace took his place, and Cynthia Strong and Captain Weeks were certainly the happier for the change. Lady Maud, likewise, to judge by her light laughter.

Fast Day rose brilliantly. The clear, crisp sunshine poured in through the dining-room windows, when, coming down to breakfast, she found her cousin there, alone.

"Another lovely day," she said gaily.

"The last for me," he replied. "That was the yacht yesterday. It has anchored below the sands, and the captain has strict orders from Louisa to bring me off dead or alive to-night." He laughed, but there was a bitter look on his face as he tossed a crumpled letter towards her. "Catch! that's my warrant of execution."

Not a very nice letter, but a reasonable one in its way. The weather was to blame, of course; still, she had asked him to join her many times and he had not joined her. He had been a month and more at Roederay and now the equinoctial gales were over, she meant to be off southwards. If he could not make use of the yacht, he must send it round to Cowes and make his own arrangements. For her part, she intended to start for the Mediterranean in ten days. Not the sort of letter to be disregarded by a husband dependent on the writer for all save a very moderate settlement.

"I've told them to have the boat ready at the GrÂda point at five this afternoon to take me on board. Perhaps it is better so. This sort of thing couldn't have gone on much longer."

She was silent, and the professor, bursting in, ended the tÊte-À-tÊte.

"What a land, or perhaps I should say sea, of surprises this is, to be sure!" he exclaimed. "The Clansman, I am informed by the factor, whom I met on his way to preaching, will anticipate her time by three whole days, owing to this Fast and some local market. She takes Carbost on the out instead of the in trip, and is due to-night, some time between seven and two in the morning. So I am afraid, my dear lady, that my delightful visit must come to a somewhat abrupt conclusion. I propose, therefore, going over--"

"To Eval House," suggested Eustace.

"No-o. To the hotel at dusk, so as to be on the spot."

Lady Maud paled visibly. "And Cynthia! of course she and Captain Weeks will go too. Ah! what a sudden breakup of our pleasant party!"

"You had better come with us, dear lady, and so reduce our regrets to a minimum," cried the professor gallantly.

But the compliment fell flat. That was the fate of most remarks during breakfast, so that conversation dwindled to excerpts from Bradshaw's guide. Captain Weeks, who was generally a stand-by of placid good nature, was peculiarly low. He had made up his mind, come what might, to try his fate with Cynthia Strong before leaving, and now, though still determined, he felt hustled. She, in her turn, knew she had shilly-shallied in a way unworthy of a Girton girl until her opportunities of bringing the professor to book had dwindled to three days; two of them to be spent at sea, where she could not be sure of herself or him. As for Eustace and Maud, their rÔle in the comedy of Life had been touched with tragedy for some time past. They felt dimly that the crisis had come.

"We have never been to Eilean-a-fa-ash, after all," said Cynthia, pausing at the window on her way to pack, and looking regretfully to where the island lay out in the blue sea.

"I thought we shouldn't," murmured Lady Maud in a low voice; "the Island of Rest is not for us."

"It has been within reach all the time. It is so still," replied Eustace in the same tone.

"We might have gone this morning if it hadn't been Fast Day," continued Cynthia, aggrieved. "Couldn't we bribe somebody? I want to go awfully, and so does the professor."

"My failure to do so will be the only regret which can possibly mingle with my memories of Roederay."

"Can't think why you all want to see it," remarked the captain, frowning at the professor's complimentary bows. "I went over one day--yes, I did, Miss Strong--to shoot seals. Didn't get any--worse luck! But it wasn't a bit pretty. Sand and bones and a stone coffin or two. The ghillie told me, too, that sometimes, after a north wind, it was awfully grim. The sand blows off, don't you know, and leaves skeletons and things. Not at all the place for ladies, don't you know."

"I'm sorry to be obliged to differ," retorted Cynthia sharply. "In my opinion, there are no places where a woman should not be."

"Nihil continget quod non ornavit," paraphrased the professor.

The captain's head held itself very high. "Perhaps I am wrong, but I don't think so. However, as you wish to see it, Miss Strong, I shall be delighted to row you over in the small boat. Only we must start at slack tide; that is, about three in the afternoon."

"Too late, I'm afraid," replied the young lady disconsolately. "We ought to be starting for the hotel before six; oughtn't we, Maud?"

"Oh, we could manage it," he went on, seeing in this plan the chance of the tÊte-À-tÊte on which his mind was set. "If the wagonette were to pick us up at the cross-roads, we should have heaps of time. It would only be starting two hours earlier,--before the others, I mean."

"What do you say, professor?" asked Cynthia sweetly.

Arthur Weeks ground his teeth, and turned away with a murmur about the boat being heavy.

"But the professor will row, of course. Every one rows at Oxford. Indeed, I, for one, think the Oxford style is the best in the world."

"Then perhaps you will not require my aid. I only learnt off the coast of Cornwall."

Cynthia looked at her usually docile adorer in amaze; she did not understand that the big man had for once thought it worth while to make up his mind. "But we couldn't go without you," she pleaded quite meekly. "You see, you have been there before. Ah, no! we couldn't go without you."

"If I can be of any use--" said the captain magnificently, and the sight of his aggrieved but courteous dignity gave Cynthia quite a pang.

So it was arranged that, about slack tide, he and the professor should row to Eilean-a-fa-ash from the boat-house on the north headland, and afterwards, taking advantage of the full tide and southerly current, slip down the coast across the sands to meet the wagonette. Eustace and Maud proposed to start about the same time for Eval House, so that he might say good-bye to Miss Willina before joining the yacht's boat at GrÂda point, whence the carriage, on its return journey, would take Lady Maud back to Roederay.

A sombre silence had lain between these two all day, and even when they were left alone on the terrace watching the others disappear shorewards, they said nothing for a time. A great stillness seemed to be in the very air. Not a breath on the water, not a sound on the moor, not a cloud on the sky. The very house seemed asleep; most of the servants away for edification or amusement at the preaching, miles to the south, amongst the peat bogs and heather, singing psalms and eating peppermint drops, praising the Creator and flirting with the creature.

The silence must have reminded Eustace of this fact, for at last he turned to his companion hastily. "They won't be at Eval, so there is no use going. Come, Maud! It is the last time we shall be together, I suppose. Come."

It was not much to grant, she thought, when she might never see him again. So they went out together over the moors, down by the little pools where the water showed their shadows, blended one into the other, upon the cairns where they sate together, looking out over the sea. Together, always together, Eustace and she, as it had been at the beginning. And this was the end, the very end.

Meanwhile the trio in the boat set forth gaily; the professor very straight in the back, and with no little style giving the stroke, whilst Arthur Weeks, gloomily polite, paddled in the bows, debarred from even a fair sight of his beloved. The full flood-tide lapped at the furthermost scallop of seaweed on the shingly shore, and touched the sea-pinks cresting the rocks.

"Couldn't you pull a leetle harder?" suggested the captain drily, when the professor paused in a long sentence to take breath. "I don't want to hustle anybody, but we have only just got time to manage it. We are making a good deal of leeway, and the channel north is a bit dangerous."

Cynthia glanced nervously towards the Pole. "Oh, yes! please, Mr. Endorwick, pull harder. We can talk when we get to the island."

Easier said than done. The perspiration poured down the professor's face, and bow kept her head straight as a die; yet still the boat failed to respond.

As they crept along slowly, the channel between the headlands and the island began to open up, showing the still, oily water which tells of swift current.

"We are too far north," said the captain, resting on his oar a moment. "The tide can't have been quite slack when we started. However, it doesn't matter; for the current here will take us south in no time."

The professor pausing too, they drifted idly.

"That's the landing-place, Miss Strong," went on the speaker. "Yonder, where the bents almost touch the water, and that square thing behind is a stone cof--" he paused abruptly. "Why, what the devil! we're drifting north--due north. By George, we are, though."

In good sooth they were--drifting north like a feather.

"North! impossible--the current runs south at flood. Stay--by Heaven, I remember--Ronald said something about a change at the equinox. Quick, man alive. Pull, pull hard! Once she gets beyond those rocks, we will have the dickens and all to keep her out of the eddy. It runs like a race--higher up--amongst sunken--rocks."

The last words came in jerks as he set all his strength to the oar. The boat spun round with the point of the professor's oar as axis; spun round, drifting as it span.

"Damn it all!" shouted the man of war busy on the rowlocks. "I beg your pardon, Miss Strong. Here, man, quick, give me the oar--go forward--lie down in the bows and keep her keel stiff. Now then, Cynthia, don't scream, there's a good girl--there's no danger as yet. Lie down too--then you won't see anything."

She did lie down ignominiously. Right down at his feet, feeling that she would be content to enter Paradise clinging to this man's coat-tails if only that entry was not premature. The whole world, to her, lay in the strength of those arms, and when, meeting her piteous eyes, his face relaxed to something like a smile, and he gasped, "All right--getting along--nicely," she felt once, and for all, that she loved his little finger better than the whole of that abject figure in the bows.

So she crouched, lost in a sort of terrified reliance on him, till with a queer little sound, half sob, half laugh, he slackened, and without a pause proceeded to retransfer a pair of rowlocks to the bows.

"Now then--professor--if you please--sorry to have--been so abrupt--but--one manages better sculling--when there's no rudder." The breaks were caused by his being out of breath. Otherwise he was full of dignity, and Cynthia Strong broke down suddenly into subdued tears.

"You had better lie still," he said. "See--here's my coat." He fumbled it into a pillow with his left hand, as he went on rowing with his right. "Raise your head, please, so;" and, as he bent over her, he whispered, "Don't cry, dear, it's all over now."

What Cynthia Strong did to the hand so near her lips is a dead secret between those two. The captain's fine flush was doubtless due to his previous exertions, but why a pillow should have caused a rush of blood to Cynthia's terror-blanched face, remains a mystery.

"Don't work so hard, professor!" cried the former gaily. "You are pulling me round, and we have to get our head towards home. Eilean-a-fa-ash is out of the question; besides, Miss Strong will be all the better for a cup of tea. This sort of thing isn't fit for women."

And nobody denied it.