The rain was still beating in fierce grey gusts over the sea and
pattering heavily upon the shingle. The waves broke with a sullen
roaring. Evidently a gale was rising.

Chris, with her face to the darkness of the cave, shivered again. Somehow
her spirit of adventure was dashed.

The flame of Bertrand's lamp shone vaguely inwards, revealing a narrow
passage that wound between rugged cliff-walls into darkness. The rock
gleamed black and shiny on all sides. Underfoot were stones of all shapes
and sizes, worn smooth by the sea.

"What a ghastly place!" whispered Chris, and something seemed to catch
the whisper and repeat it sibilantly a great many times as if learning it
off by heart.

"Permit me to precede you," said Bertrand. "You will find it not so
narrow in a moment. If you look behind you, you will see the sea as in
the frame of a picture. It is beautiful, is it not?"

His soft voice and casual words reassured her. She looked and admired,
though the sea was grey and the shore all blurred with rain.

"There will be a rainbow soon," he said. "See! It grows more light
already."

But he was looking at her as he spoke, though his glance fell directly
she turned towards him.