Fairfax stared at the sea shifting to and fro and the line of miniature breakers curling and roaring as gently as sucking doves.
He had done it—achieved his purpose. It seemed impossible that only that morning he had stood on the quay at Dieppe and gone over the car. Yet he had done so—that morning. And now—here he was at Biarritz. And there was Athalia looking at him with steady eyes. And Beringhampton had not spoken. . . . He was—in time.
The tragedy of it was he had nothing to say.
There was nothing to say. He had meant to ‘have it out.’ He had torn across France like a madman to ‘have it out.’ Have what out? There was nothing to have out. Athalia had said as much . . . any moment, now. . . . In the face of that, how could he——
He began to wonder whether such a giant fool’s errand had ever been run before.
Athalia was speaking.
“What is it, Punch? You didn’t start a day early to ask me that.”
“I didn’t start a day early.”
A puzzled look came into the great brown eyes.
“But you can’t have——”