"He is very kind," Marie agreed frigidly.

"How you will miss him!" the elder woman went on sympathetically.

"Or is he going back to town with you?"

"No, he is not going back with us," Marie said.

Her eyes went across the lounge, to where Feathers stood talking to some people, and her heart contracted with a sudden fear.

Yes, she would miss him, she knew! She was afraid to think how much.

CHAPTER IX

"Time keeps no measure when two friends are parted."

MARIE woke on the Friday morning with the vague feeling that something unpleasant was going to happen.

She lay for a moment looking round the room with sleepy eyes, then suddenly she remembered--they were going back to London!

She sat up in bed, her dark hair falling about her shoulders, and stared at her half-packed luggage.

This was the end of her honeymoon! Nearly a month since she had been married--a month of bitterness and disappointments, with only one bright memory attaching to it--her friendship with Feathers.

And now she was leaving even that behind! She was conscious of a little shrinking fear as she thought of it.

Who would help her through the long days when he was not at hand?

She fell back helplessly on her old futile hope.

"I shall be used to it soon! I must get used to living like this soon, surely!"

There would be Aunt Madge, too; It was comforting to think of her, but Marie did not realize that when she married Chris she had burnt her boats behind her, and would never again find happiness or contentment in the simple things that had pleased her before.

Her heart was heavy as she went downstairs; it was a particularly beautiful morning, and her eyes were misty with tears as she looked at the blue sea and the sunlight and realized that to-morrow she would open her eyes on bricks and mortar and smoky London.

Yet it had been her own wish to return. She could have stayed on had she chosen.

"Good morning," said Feathers beside her.

She turned quickly, her eyes brightening.

"Am I down before you? It's generally the other way about?"

"Yes, I overslept myself. Where's Chris?"

"I don't think he's up yet."

There was a little silence.

"Are you going by the morning train?" Feathers asked presently.

"No, after lunch, I think; we shall be home about five."

She looked up at him wistfully. "Have you got a headache?" she asked in concern. "You look as if you have."

He laughed.

"No. I don't indulge in such luxuries, but I didn't sleep particularly well last night."

"A guilty conscience?" Marie said, teasingly.

"Probably." He stepped out into the sunny garden. "Shall we go for a stroll, as it's your last morning?"

She followed at once.

"That sounded so horrid," she said, with a half sigh. "My last morning! It sounds as if I were going to be executed or something."

"The last of happy days here, I should have said," Feathers corrected himself gravely. "I hope it will also be the first of many and much happier days to come."

"Thank you." Suddenly she laughed. "Why, it's Friday! I always seem to choose unlucky days to go to places or do important things. I was married on Friday, and I came home from Paris after father died on Friday."

"Well, it's as good a day as any other."

She shook her head.

"Not for me," she said, unthinkingly, then laughed to cover the admission of her words.

"I'm superst.i.tious, you see."

"Absurd!"

"I know it is, and I never used to be."

"I don't believe you are now." he declared.

"What are you looking at?" Marie had stood suddenly still, and was looking down on the sands.

The tide was out, and a man and woman were walking along together close to the water's edge.

"It's Chris and Mrs. Heriot," Feathers said quietly. "Shall we go and meet them?"

He turned towards the steps leading down to the sh.o.r.e, but Marie did not move. She was very pale, and the look in her eyes cut him to the heart when he looked at her.

"I don't think I will--I'd rather go back--they haven't seen us,"