They had reached the end of the platform and now turned back towards the bay. Its waves were tossing with spray-crested edges into which gulls with the sun on their wings were dipping. In the distance a vista of sun-rays streamed over St. Helier's, lying low along the shore with its fortified heights in shadow against the blackness of a storm sweeping up from the West. It was high tide, and Elizabeth Castle was surrounded by a rolling sea. A curve of yellow sand, with here and there a martello tower, marked the coast-line. The air was full of the rush of the waves and the sough of a rising wind. 'If ever I marry, I don't think I shall act on your experience of the previous forty hours,' said Ambrose Piton, as they strolled back to the train with a few more leisurely people. 'A drive of five miles from your Yorkshire moors at Old Lafer to the nearest station, Wonston, I suppose--a rush down England to Southampton, ten hours' pitching in a dirty sea, by our caterpillar of a train to St. Aubin's here, and finally a three miles' walk. By Jove, you must be feeling rather done up.' 'Oh no, I'm accustomed to such journeys. I did precisely the same with the exception of this final walk when I came out to Jersey five months ago and had the good fortune to fall in with Miss Hugo. You'll probably not be a man of fifty, overwhelmed with other people's business, when you marry, Ambrose. It's this walk to Rocozanne that amuses you,' he added, with a genial smile. 'You think it inconsistent with a lover's ardour that I should not go as fast as your good mare would take me. The truth is, I want an hour's leisure. When one marries a second time and is my age, and it is a young girl who is good enough to take one, the responsibilities are much greater than when two young people marry; one has more misgiving, you know, about one's wife being happy. Since I won Clothilde I have scarcely had time to realise my good fortune. Through this journey I've struggled with correspondence that would be arrears of work if left over next week. And now a walk will freshen me up and adjust my thoughts to a proper balance, since to-morrow, please God, I shall be married. My age must be the excuse for what yours takes for lukewarmness.' 'I don't think you lukewarm,' said Piton bluntly. 'But I'll tell you what, sir, you at fifty are more simple-minded than I at twenty-five.' 'Simple-minded? How? I don't understand.' 'You call a spade a spade and you think it is one,' said Piton lamely, yet with a desperate resolution that showed a serious undercurrent of thought. 'Of course, being straightforward. You would yourself.' 'Oh, certainly,' said Piton with trepidation. 'Here comes the engine,' he added with awkward haste as he jumped on to the train. 'One moment--how is she?' 'Clothilde? Very well.' 'And Anna? It's very good of you and Mr. Piton to let us carry little Anna off.'