"Don't look!" he cried sharply and snatched his wife away. As he did so the pillar broke up in two component parts, as though dissolved by the white encircling flood of light.
A woman's stifled scream came through the open window.
"Joe!"
Then there was a slither of chalk as the pair stampeded down the path out of sight, and crashed into the beach beneath. The Colonel let down the blind with a rattle.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT
Ernie clattered into the kitchen at a busy trot, and stumbled upstairs without a word to his wife at the sink.
There was such an air of stir and secret purposefulness about him that Ruth followed him up to the bedroom. There she found him on his knees in a litter of things, packing a bundle frantically.
A dish-cloth in her hand, she watched his efforts.
"Where away then?" she asked.