“I have news for you.” “No—not that.” “Come, sit down, and you shall see.” There were bowlders scattered under the cliffs. The two climbed the beach and chose a species of stone circle where they were sheltered from the sun. Ophelia leaned back against one of the stones, with Maltravers lying at her feet. “Read that,” she said, taking a crumpled letter from her pocket and giving it into his hand; “it was forwarded from Callydon.” The soldier sat up, squatted with his knees under his chin, and ran his eyes rapidly over the crumpled sheet. There was a certain rapacious and wolfish look upon his face. His mustaches twitched above his big, clean-shaven jaw; his brown hands trembled. At the end thereof he whistled softly through his teeth and stared out over the sea. “By Jove,” he said, “what a coincidence!” “Strange, only three weeks ago.” “Yes, I prophesied this.” “Are you glad?” He turned suddenly and looked at her, and his eyes glistened. Gabriel’s wife reached for the letter. Their fingers met, and the man’s closed on hers; her hand was moist and warm, with the letter crumpled betwixt their palms. “Well!” she said. They stared at each other a long while in silence, like those whose thoughts kindle and beacon from their eyes. The woman’s color deepened. Her bosom moved markedly; her white teeth showed between her lips. “Jim!” He unbuttoned her sleeve, bared her shapely forearm, and pressed his lips to it like one who sucks poison from a wound. She laughed softly, a sound that seemed to mimic the noise of the waves. Perhaps for one moment she remembered Gabriel, her husband, and that golden June evening in the Mallan meadows. The vision was transitory and powerless, a mere breath from the frozen past. Near her was the soldier’s bronzed, handsome face, with its hawk-like pride and the strong passion in its eyes. “Well!” she said, at length. “By God, Phyl, I can’t help it; don’t be hard on me; you make me mad.” “Bide so,” she said, with a little pleasurable sucking in of her breath. “Is it to be?” “Need you ask that?” He pressed her bare arm against his cheek, stretched himself at full length, and laid his head in her lap as she leaned against the stone. Gabriel’s wife bent over him and watched her own reflection in his eyes. She closed his lids with her finger-tips and let her hand rest on his forehead. “You look tired, Jim.” “Thinking hard, that is all.” “What will you do?” she asked him, presently. “Carry this through to the death,” he said, with a tightening of the jaw. She looked over the face in her lap and away towards the sea, where gulls were sweeping like pure spirits over the blue. The transcendent egotism of the moment had made them both blind to the world that was beyond the mere ken of their senses. They were both happy in a desperate, headlong fashion. Ophelia still had Mrs. Marjoy’s letter crumpled in one hand.