the boat into the coarse and wiry grass where Septimus Marvin's own
dinghy lay, half hidden by the reeds, and he stumbled ashore
clutching at the dewy grass as he climbed the side of the dyke.

He went toward the turf-shelter half despondently, and then stopped
short a few yards away from it. For Miriam was there. He thought
she was alone, and paused to make sure before he spoke. She was
sitting at the far corner, sheltered from the north wind. For
Farlingford is like a ship--always conscious of the lee- and the
weather-side, and all who live there are half sailors in their
habits--subservient to the wind.

"At last," said Loo, with a little vexed laugh. He could see her
face turned toward him, but her eyes were only dark shadows beneath
her hair. Her face looked white in the darkness. Her answering
laugh had a soothing note in it.

"Why--at last?" she asked. Her voice was frank and quietly assured
in its friendliness. They were old comrades, it seemed, and had
never been anything else. The best friendship is that which has
never known a quarrel, although poets and others may sing the
tenderness of a reconciliation. The friendship that has a quarrel
and a reconciliation in it is like a man with a weak place left in
his constitution by a past sickness. He may die of something else
in the end, but the probability is that he must reckon at last with
that healed sore. The friendship may perish from some other cause--
a marriage, or success in life, one of the two great severers--but
that salved quarrel is more than likely to recur and kill at last.

These two had never fallen out. And it was the woman who, contrary