"Hullo, Belle!" cried Bertie Rokeby, catching at her dress as she hurried past the hut. "Look out, can't you! Don't you see that you're trampling all over the shells that I've just laid out to sort on the sand? What's the row? You look like a regular tragedy queen—Lady Macbeth in the murder scene, or Juliet about to stab herself!"
"Let me go," said Belle crossly, trying to pull herself free. "What horrid, rough things you boys are! Why can't you leave me alone, I should like to know?"
"Humpty-Dumpty! We are in a jolly wax," said Bertie. "You're as bad as a cat with her back up. All the same, I don't want my shells smashed, so please to mind where you're stepping."
"Bother your shells!" said Belle. "You shouldn't leave them lying about in people's way. There! you've torn a slit in my dress. I knew you would! Let me go, Bertie Rokeby, you mean coward!" And jerking her skirt with an effort from his grasp, she started at a run along the beach, and fled as fast as she could in the direction of Silversands.
She had reached the southern point of the island, where they generally crossed the channel, and was hurrying on, not looking particularly where she was going, her eyes half blinded with self-pitying tears, when, turning the headland sharply, she ran full tilt against her quondam acquaintance of the Parade, who was walking leisurely along the sands with a cigar in his mouth and a breechloader under his arm. The collision was so sudden and unexpected that Belle sat down swiftly in a pool of slimy green sea-weed, while the gun, knocked by the impact from its owner's grasp, struck the rock violently, and discharged both barrels into the air. The colonel, who had been almost upset with the shock, recovered his balance as by a miracle, and hastened to ascertain the extent of the mishap; but finding no harm done, he picked up his gun and surveyed Belle with considerable disfavour.
"You might have caused a very nasty accident, young lady," he said. "It's a mercy the charge didn't land in either your leg or mine. Why don't you look where you're going?"
Belle raised herself carefully from the pool, glancing with much concern at the large green stains which had reduced her dress to a wreck, and at the moist condition of her silk stockings.
"How could I know any one was round the corner?" she replied, somewhat sulkily. "I wonder what my mother would have said if you'd killed me. I'm not sure if my leg isn't shot through, after all."
"Let me look," said the colonel quietly. "No, that's not a wound, though you've grazed it a little, very likely in falling. There's no real damage, and I think you're more frightened than hurt."
"My dress is spoilt," said Belle, determined to have a grievance. "These green stains will never wash out of it. It's really too bad."