For at least five seconds he scrutinized my face. Then he stooped down low, as if he was going to kneel at my feet, and began hunting for the cap which he had thrown down among the nasturtiums. He was a long time finding it. When he got up again, he said in clear, low, sad tones: "Miss Gertrude, I pray to God that I may live to do one half as much for you as you have done this night for me." "Cheer up, Gibson," I said; "things are hardly ever as bad as they look. Enjoy your holiday all you can. Write down your address and give it me in the morning. It’s getting chilly. Good-night." I hadn’t moved twenty yards before he was at my heels once more. "I beg your pardon, Ma’am," he said breathlessly, "but there’s just one other thing." "Yes?" "I’m thinking, Ma’am, perhaps you won’t name it to Susan that I’ve spoke like this to-night?" "You may be easy in mind, Gibson, I’m not likely to say a word about it. And be careful that you never name it to her yourself that we’ve had this talk." "Never, Ma’am, as long as I live," said Gibson fervently. And so I managed to get away. On the whole, the Gibson part of this drama of ours has tried me more than Susan’s. That Susan should marry a lord, and become mistress of Ruddington Towers, is no more than an oddity, an awkwardness. But it is a very different thing to look on while an honest lad like Gibson sees the girl he worships bribed away from him with money. To say that I feel like a bather banged about on the stones by the breakers is to put it too weakly. My brains feel like a battlefield, where Greeks and Trojans, Hector and Achilles, have been trampling, and slashing, and charging all the long day. And for Helen and Paris, I have a lady’s-maid and a groom! _Bed-time_. Another thunderbolt--the loudest and horriblest and most abominable yet! Susan must be stark mad. Instead of copying out my draft, she has simply tucked it inside the specimen envelope I addressed, and has posted it to Ruddington! I’m too utterly sick and tired and disgusted to write down in this diary all that Susan said--which wasn’t much--and all that I said--which was even less, but entirely to the point. Susan has gone off, crying--as if she’s the one with the grievance! Thank God for bed! *BOOK II* *DIEPPE* *BOOK II* _Saturday night_. The sight, and smell, and sound of the glittering, tumbling sea must have done me good. After last night’s and Thursday night’s bad dreams and worse wakings, I ought to be as sleepy as a dormouse. Yet I feel quite fresh and keen.