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 Mrs. Maurier descended the stairs slowly, heavily. The other steadied her with her strong hand, and opening Mrs. Maurier’s door she reached in and found the light button. “There. Would you like anything before you go to bed?”

“No, no,” Mrs. Maurier answered, entering and averting her face quickly. She crossed the room and busied herself at the dressing table, keeping her back to the other. “Thank you, nothing. I shall go to sleep at once, I think. I always sleep well on the water. Good night.”

Mrs. Wiseman closed the door. I wonder what it is, she thought, I wonder what happened to her? She went on along the passage to her own door. Something did, something happened to her, she repeated, putting her hand on the door and turning the knob.

The moon had got higher, that worn and bloodless one, old and a little weary and shedding her tired silver on yacht and water and shore; and the yacht, the deck and its fixtures, was passionless as a dream upon the shifting silvered wings of water when she appeared in her bathing suit. She stood for a moment in the doorway until she saw movement and his white shirt where he half turned on the coil of rope where he sat. Her lifted hand blanched slimly in the hushed treachery of the moon: a gesture, and her bare feet made no sound on the deck.

“Hello, David. I’m on time, like I said. Where’s your bathing suit?”

“I didn’t think you would come,” he said, looking up at her, “I didn’t think you meant it.”

“Why not?” she asked. “Good Lord, what’d I want to tell you I was for, if I wasn’t?”