Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/274

 the shafts of the sun. The red sun itself mounted with speed into the melting glories of the sky, like a fiery ball hurled upward from below by giants at play.

The lashing and freezing of the spray had formed for a quarter of a mile from the shore hundreds of hummocks from five to twenty feet high of matchless purity, blue white in the shadow.

Derek was exhilarated, excited, by the splendour of the scene. After he had given Bill a hand with the work, he set out to explore this new polar region at his door. He went down the road and crossed the bridge where icicles jutted out horizontally from the framework like frozen fingers pointing to Grimstone. He wandered among the hummocks out to the water's edge, winding his way in and out, staring down into ragged caverns where the black water pressed and sucked.

"I might be the only soul on earth," he thought; and then he saw that he was not alone, for a figure had suddenly risen on one of the highest peaks and stood there like a statue gazing outward over the lake.

It was Grace Jerrold.

A flood of emotion shook him. To meet her alone like this! As though it were at the world's end. He and she. He slid and scrambled down his hummock and started towards her. She heard him coming and turned her head, but she remained on the peak of the hummock looking down at him unsmilingly.

"Shall I come up?" he asked when he had reached the bottom of the slope.

She shook her head but did not speak.

"Not come up? Grace. Have I done something new?"

"Oh, no. But"—she paused as though she could not go on.

"But what?"