But supper-time came and went. The sun dipped under the fading sea line, the twilight waned, the yellow stars stole forth, one by one, from the gray: Geoffrey Arbuthnot returned not. She had acted with family pride, perhaps from virtue, conceivably from jealousy, without doubt, as became a Bartrand. These cold consolations were all that the universe, just at present, seemed likely to offer. CHAPTER XXXVIII TEMPTATION When the Cherbourg boat reached Guernsey, twenty-four hours behind her time, no Dinah, with radiant expectant face, waited on the quay to bid Gaston Arbuthnot good-morning. It was the first occasion since their marriage that she had in like manner failed. After ever so short a separation it was Dinah’s habit to go bravely to the fore on harbour side or platform with a welcome for the husband she loved. No Dinah was to be seen this morning. And Gaston Arbuthnot’s spirit sat more lightly on its throne by reason of her absence. He was honestly glad to return. A day and a night’s detention on a rock, with a thick sea-fog, and without one’s dressing-case, was a test, of sentiment and of friendship alike, which Gaston had felt to be beyond his strength. But it was a relief to him that poor Dinah, effusive, reproachful--Dinah, half sunshine, half tears--should not be on the pier to enact a little scene of domestic interest beneath the sharp, uncomprehending eyes of Linda Thorne. ‘Useless to ask you to breakfast with us,’ murmured that lady, from beneath her treble gauze mask, as she and Gaston were passing across the gangway. ‘Dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, I am sure, will be in a fever of anxiety about your return.’ ‘Scarcely. Every one in Guernsey must have known that fog detained us. If you will be at home this afternoon,’ Gaston added, when their hands met at parting, ‘I will give you the latest bulletin as to Dinah’s condition.’ ‘Oh, I make no promises,’ cried Linda, carelessly. ‘“He who will not when he may”--you know the rest of the proverb. Long before five o’clock to-day some tragic event may have changed us’--in after times this prophecy, made in jest, might possibly return to Linda Thorne’s memory--‘changed us for ever into enemies. Robbie, love, accept my arm. As you are quite determined that two shillings’ worth of cab would bring us to bankruptcy, we will return to our home and infant on foot.’ Doctor and Mrs. Thorne turned, on leaving the quay, into a narrow street leading towards the Old Town and The Bungalow. Gaston Arbuthnot, with the lightheartedness born of recovered freedom, ran quickly up the hundred-and-eighty steps that formed the shortest cut from the pier road to Miller’s Hotel. At the summit of these steps a new temptation assailed him in the person of old Colonel de Gourmet, the bachelor proprietor of the most luxurious little house, the best cellar, and the best cook in the Channel Archipelago.