themselves on the grey ledge like a pair of sea-birds, and Nance's
exiguous white garment no longer fluttered in the breeze.

Then in they went again, and again, and again, till, tiring of the
limits of the pool--huge as he afterwards found it to be--they crept
over the barnacled rocks to the sea, and flung themselves fearlessly in,
and came ploughing through it towards his headland. And he shrank still
lower among the bracken, for though he had watched the distant little
figure in white with a slight sense of sacrilege, and absolutely no
sense of impropriety but only of enjoyment, he would not for all he was
worth have had her know that he had watched at all, since he could
imagine how she would resent it.

Nevertheless, these unconscious revelations of her real self were to him
as jewels of price, and he treasured the memory of them accordingly.

He watched them swim back and disappear among the rocks, and presently
go merrily up the bare slope again; and he lay long in the bracken,
scarce daring to move, and when he did, he crept away warily, as one
guilty of a trespass.

And glad he was that he had done so, for he had proof of her feeling
that same night at supper.

Peter Mauger came sheepishly in again with Tom, and Tom, when he had
satisfied the edge of his hunger, must wax facetious in his brotherly
way.

"Peter and me was sitting among the rocks over against big pool
s'afternoon and we saw things"--with a grin.