The Fighting Chance

Out over the rain-wet, odorous grass she picked her way, skirts swung high above the delicate contour of ankle and limb, following a little descending path she knew full of rocky angles, swept by pendant sprays of blackberry, and then down under the jutting rock, south through thickets of wild cherry along the crags, until, before her the way opened downward again where a tiny crescent beach glimmered white hot in the sun.

From his bedroom window Mortimer peeped forth, following her progress with a leer.

As she descended, noticing the rifts of bronzing seaweed piled along the tide mark, her foot dislodged a tiny triangle of rock, which rolled clattering and ringing below; and as she sprang lightly to the sand, a man, lying full length and motionless as the heaped seaweed, raised himself on one arm, turning his sun-dazzled eyes on her.

The dull shock of surprise halted her as Siward rose to his feet, still dazed, the sand running from his brown shooting-clothes over his tightly strapped puttees.

"Have you the faintest idea that I supposed you were here?" she asked briefly. Then, frank in her disappointment, she looked up at the cliffs overhead, where her line of retreat lay.

"Why did you not go with the others?" she added, unsmiling.

"I--don't know. I will, if you wish." He had coloured slowly, the frank disappointment in her face penetrating his surprise; and now he turned around, instinctively, also looking for the path of retreat.

"Wait," she said, aware of her own crude attitude and confused by it; "wait a moment, Mr. Siward. I don't mean to drive you away."

"It's self-exile," he said quietly; "quite voluntary, I assure you."

"Mr. Siward!"

And, as he looked up coolly, "Have you nothing more friendly to say to me? Is your friendship for me so limited that my first caprice oversteps the bounds? Must I always be in dread of wounding you when I give you the privilege of knowing me better than anybody ever knew me--of seeing me as I am, with all my faults, my failings, my impulses, my real self? … I don't know why the pleasure of being alone to-day should have meant exclusion for you, too. It was the unwelcome shock of seeing anybody--a selfish enjoyment of myself--that surprised me into rudeness. That is all. … Can you not understand?"

"I think so. I meant no criticism--"

"Wait, Mr. Siward!" as he moved slowly toward the path. "You force me to say other things, which you have no right to hear. … After last night"--the vivid tint grew in her face--"after such a night, is it not--natural--for a girl to creep off somewhere by herself and try to think a little?"