‘Dinah, my love, this is fortunate. I have been hunting everywhere for you,’ said Gaston, hitting without effort upon one of those airy little nothings which float men of his weight, like corks, over half the whirlpools of life. ‘I am glad, in spite of all that has happened, to see you back.’ And Dinah, who had never uttered an airy nothing since she was born, looked hard at him. Traces, unmistakable, of tear-shedding gave an expression Gaston Arbuthnot liked not to her eyes. ‘Yet you did not show your gladness by meeting me on the pier--grim and dirty objects we must all have been after our twenty-four hours’ discomfort! Perhaps I deserved to be neglected,’ said Gaston, in a tone of resignation. ‘But remember, darling, I am not accustomed to miss your face when I have been away. The punishment, coming immediately after a course of Alderney and fog, struck me as rough.’ ‘Don’t talk of punishment,’ Dinah answered, her voice betraying the strong effort by which she kept it controlled. ‘Your staying away has been hard to bear ... and now, now I wish to forget everything but that you are back safe.’ ‘And what did you do with your time, yesterday? Of course you were not anxious. You knew that fog, and fog alone, was keeping me in Alderney.’ ‘Yesterday was the blackest day I have ever lived through.’ And Dinah lifted her face, courting rather than turning from her husband’s scrutiny. ‘Blackest? Why, I thought you had had sunshine in Guernsey, that the fog concentrated itself with vile partiality upon our horrible rock yonder! And what did you do with your time, then,’ went on Gaston, with unabated cheerfulness. ‘Where was Geoffrey?’ ‘I did not think of Geoffrey. I had heart for nothing but to stay in my own room.’ ‘Substituting tea for dinner, close air for oxygen, as Woman loves to do when she is in trouble--or has manufactured trouble for herself. And had you no visitors at all to lighten your darkness?’ ‘Lord Rex Basire seems to have called. His card was lying this morning on the parlour table.’ ‘And you have no wider sympathies, Dinah, no desire to know how we, miserable deserters, got along in Alderney?’ ‘I like, of course, to hear everything that concerns you.’ Dinah accentuated the pronoun stoutly. ‘Although you had not sufficient curiosity to meet me when I landed?’ As Gaston thus adroitly harked back upon his grievance his wife’s eyes sank. She turned from him with a movement of impatience. ‘The moment the steamer was signalled I got ready, Gaston. I went straight down to the pier road and watched her come into harbour. Oh, you never saw me,’ Dinah added quickly. ‘I was standing behind some piles of timber at the entrance to the pier, a hundred yards distant. And when I saw you and the Thornes land together, I felt certain you would walk with them to their house, and I lost courage and got away.’ ‘To avoid the deadly risk of saying good-morning to Mrs. Thorne and the Doctor?’