Presently there was the grating of a wheeled chair passing over gravel. The chair had been left by a former occupant of the house and Emily had found it, covered with dust, in one of the chambers. Rachel's face was as wan as the face of a martyr in a mediæval picture, though her cheeks caught a tinge from the pink "cloud" wrapped around her head. Her eyes under their slender brows, held the old vivid passionate look, and her mouth resembled a little bit of pale crumpled velvet in which gleamed, all at once, the fascinating white of her teeth. Simon approached; then, with a glance at Emily, he kissed his wife's little, white, blue-veined hand which dropped so supplely from its wrist. "Take me down the path," she commanded. "Oh, how heavenly this air is!--and the sea! Do you know, Simon, illness gives one a new pair of eyes?" Emily Short looked after the couple uneasily. She had said what she could to Simon to prevent his carrying out his absurd scheme relative to St. Ives; she had objected as strongly as she dared on various pretexts. But Simon, bent on making clear to Rachel how completely he renounced his former attitude toward the inventor, had turned a deaf ear. Now Emily imagined that he was announcing the step he had taken, for from where she stood, she saw Rachel lift her head with a swift, frightened air. Then it slowly sank as though a weight had forced it to her breast. Standing in the keen sunlight, a little, lean, homely figure with a worn face, Emily sighed. She herself had never known love, yet she sighed and knotted her fingers tightly together beneath her apron. It was evident that Rachel did not wish to go in the direction of the gardener's cottage, for they turned into another path. Half an hour later when she knew Simon had left his wife in order to catch his train for the city, Emily went in search of the invalid. She found her drawn up in the shelter of a small, half-ruinous summer-house overrun with vines which stood at one corner of the grounds. As Emily approached, she saw Rachel crane forward, with her hands gripping the arms of the wheeled chair. A wonderful unrestrained tenderness beamed in her face. Passing not twenty feet away and visible through the intricacies of the wall of leaves was Emil St. Ives. The stuff of his shirt rippled in the breeze and the material clung to his muscular shoulders; his hair was in a tousle, his lips, surrounded by their curling beard, emitted a gay shrillness of sound; he was whistling as a bird sings. Abruptly Rachel dropped back in the chair. Without looking at Emily, she signified a desire to return to the house. Emily pushed the chair into the sunlight and the little group crept up the path; while, all unconscious, Emil went leaping down the sands to bathe in the sea.