As they sat down, Caroline could feel his fingers trembling on her arm; suddenly his kiss struck hard on her lips and her head fell back so that he could see the dark rims of her eyelashes. "Ah! You're in it too--you're in it too," he murmured triumphantly--caring for nothing but that triumphant knowledge. She knew what he meant--they were both in it. Their oneness enveloped her in a cloud of rapture. Then she jerked herself out of his embrace. "No. No. I can't have you kissing me. It isn't fair to take your fun out of me when you're going to be married directly. I don't know how you can want to do it." He jumped up without speaking and walked towards the cliff edge. "Good God!" he burst out. "You don't imagine I _want_ to be in love with you! I'm in hell--hell! Whatever I do, I see your face. It's beyond all reason----" He stopped short, amazed and enraged by this strange, biting curiosity which made him mad about a girl who was nothing--who was not even really pretty. What could influence men in this way--driving them to insane acts for the sake of some one woman out of all the millions? There must be something not yet understood. Suddenly he dropped on to the seat, holding his head in his hands. "I don't know what on earth I am going to do," he said. She looked at him--so helpless in his passion--and the protective instinct of a real woman for her man began to stir in her: so, in spite of her own pain, she tried hard to find something to say that would comfort him. "You--you'll get over it," she said, her voice shaking. "It isn't as if you and I had been going together long, you know. You'll soon forget me." "Don't!" he said sharply. She drew back offended. "Oh! All right." She rose with a sort of dignity. "I think I'd better be going home. It must be getting late." "Now you're vexed." He peered at her--haggard-eyed in that curious twilight from the sea. "Can't you see that everything you do and say makes me want you more? If you'd only turned out a fool!" He drew a long breath. "I must be going home," she repeated, moving away. He caught hold of her dress as she went. "Carrie, I can't let you go. I can't do without you." "You'll have to," she said sombrely. "We shall both have to. There's no help for it." He waited a moment, then the words seemed to come out of themselves--despite him. "I'm not married yet, you know." She started. "You don't mean----" Then she backed away from him, the silhouette of her slim figure very clear against the luminous background of sea and sky--every line of it dragging at his senses--hurting him with pity. "You know you couldn't do it," she said after a pause. "We neither of us could. It would kill her. Besides, I couldn't sneak another girl's man after the banns were up and the cake bought--a girl who'd never done me any harm. I aren't so low down as all that, yet."