Part 29 (2/2)

For a minute or two Alphonse turned the idea hazily over in his apology for a mind; then, with a hasty exclamation, he ran to the side, and saw dimly the taut anchor chain. He blundered below, lugged Adolphe out of his berth and on deck, and for five excited minutes they explained to one another that the anchor was embedded in the sandbank, and that it held the _Petrel_ on it. Then soberly and slowly they got to work on the capstan, and hauled up the anchor. A dozen turns of the propeller drew the _Petrel_ off the bank and into deep water. In three minutes they had her about and steamed off towards the marooned, while Tinker in the galley was heating water for coffee and making soup.

In the meanwhile Dorothy and Sir Tancred, ignorant of their plight, had spent a delightful afternoon exploring with a never-tiring interest one another's souls. For a long time she chided him gently for his aimless manner of living; and he defended himself with a half-mocking sadness.

At about sunset they rose reluctantly, sighed with one accord that the pleasant hours were over, looked at one another with sudden questioning eyes at the sound of the sighs, and looked quickly away. They walked slowly, on feet reluctant to leave pleasant places, through the pines, silent, save that twice Sir Tancred sent his voice ringing among the trees in a call to Tinker. They came to the landing-place, to find an empty sea, and looked at one another blankly.

”The children must have persuaded the men to take them for a cruise,”

said Sir Tancred.

”But they're late coming back,” said Dorothy.

For a while their eyes explored the corners and recesses of the Gulf within sight, but found no _Petrel_. Then Sir Tancred said, ”Well, we must wait”; and spread a rug for her at the foot of a tree. He paced up and down before her, keeping an eye over the water and talking to her.

The dusk deepened and deepened, and at last it was quite dark.

”We're in a fix,” said Sir Tancred uneasily. ”Of course, if we stay here they will come for us sooner or later, but goodness knows when.

If we set out to walk to civilisation we shall doubtless in time strike it somewhere, but goodness knows where.”

”If we went along this strip and turned eastward at the end of it shouldn't we come to the railway?” said Dorothy.

”I don't know that we should. We should get into the _Landes_, and they're by way of being trackless. Anyhow it would mean walking for hours; and it is less exhausting for you to sit here. The _Petrel_ must turn up sooner or later.”

Remembering her talk with Tinker in the morning, Dorothy believed that it would be later--much later; but as she could hardly unfold her reasons for the belief, she said nothing.

For a long time they were silent. Listening to the faint thunder of the Bay behind them, the lapping of the water at their feet, and the stirring of the pines, she filled slowly with a sense of their aloofness from the world, and a perfect content in being out of it alone with him. For his part, Sir Tancred was ill at ease; he foresaw that unless the _Petrel_ came soon a lot of annoying gossip might spring from their accident, and he was distressed on her account. On the other hand, he, too, found himself enjoying being alone with her out of the world.

At last she said softly, ”I feel as though we were on a desolate, far-away island.”

”I wish to goodness we were!” he cried, with a fervour which thrilled her.

”You'd find it very dull,” she said, with a faint, uncertain laugh.

”Not with you,” he said quietly.

She was silent; and he took another turn up and down before he said, half to himself, ”It would simplify things so, we should be equal.”

”Equal?”

”Oh, not from the personal point of view!” he said quickly. ”You'd always be worth a hundred of me. But on a desolate island money wouldn't count.”

”Oh, money!” she said with a faint disdain. ”What has money to do with anything?”

He sighed, and continued his pacing.

”Money is always an obstacle,” he said presently. ”Either there is too little of it, and that's an obstacle; or there is too much of it, and that's an obstacle.”

”I don't think papa would agree with you about too much money,” said Dorothy.

”I'm wondering what he will say if we don't turn up before morning,”

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