Betty's shrill voice at her side recalled her from her dreams. "Betty tired now, Auntie Toy. Betty tummin' to sit down." She turned and took the child upon her lap with a fondling touch and tender words. Betty pillowed a downy head against her neck and almost immediately fell asleep. Eileen and Molly laboured on at their self-imposed task in the autumn sunshine, and Toby returned to her dreams. Perhaps she also had begun to doze, for the day was warm and sound sleep had forsaken her of late; when the falling of a shadow aroused her very swiftly to the consciousness of someone near at hand whose approach she had not heard. She controlled her quick start before it could awaken the sleeping child, but her eyes as they flashed upwards had the strained, panic-stricken look of a hunted animal. She made an almost involuntary movement of shrinking and the blood went out of her lips, but she spoke no word. A man in a navy-blue yachting-suit stood looking down at her with blue-grey eyes that tried to be impersonal but failed at that slight gesture of hers. "You needn't be afraid of me, heaven knows," he said. "I'm not," said Toby promptly, and flung him her old boyish smile. "I wasn't expecting just you at that moment, that's all. Sit down and talk, Captain--if that's what you've come for!" Apparently it was. He lowered himself to the sand beside her. But at once--as by irresistible habit--his eyes sought the horizon, and he sat and contemplated it in utter silence. Toby endured the situation for a few difficult seconds, then took brisk command. "Why don't you have a smoke?" she said. "You'd find it a help." He put his hand mechanically into his pocket and took out his cigarette-case. His eyes came back out of space as he did so, and rested upon the fair-haired child in the girl's arms. "So you've come back to the old job!" he said. Toby nodded. "Yes. Jake's doing. I'm waiting to--to--to be divorced." He made a slight movement of surprise, but his face remained inscrutable. "You'll have to wait some time for that," he said. Toby tilted her chin with a reckless gesture that was somehow belied by the weariness of her eyes. "That wasn't what you came to talk about then?" she suggested after a pause. "No." Larpent's voice had a curious, almost deprecating quality. "I came to bring you a message." "A message!" She started slightly, and in a moment the defiance went out of her attitude. She turned towards him. "Who--who is it from?" Larpent's far-seeing eyes came gravely to meet her own. "From Rozelle Daubeni," he said. "Ah!" A quick shiver went through Toby. She averted her look. "I don't want to hear it," she said. "I've got to deliver it," said Larpent, with a hint of doggedness. "And you've got to listen. But you needn't be afraid. It isn't going to make any difference to you. The time has gone for that."