“Looks to be some current.”
“It would carry you out and ‘Good night’ to you. Gabriel who runs the launch told me. Set’s right out to sea someway. And the rise and fall to it—I couldn’t tell you how many feet it is, but you’ll see for yourself to-night if you’re awake—all the channel bare, nothing but rocks and mud. And across the middle of it to Hayworth, a causeway. That’s the only way you can get ashore at low tide. High or low you’re pretty well marooned. It’s seclusion all right if that’s what you’re after.”
Shine was after information and with the talk running on tides and causeways he saw no chance of getting it. So he tried to divert the garrulous lady:
“That’s Miss Saunders and Miss Tracy out there looking at the sunset.”
Mrs. Cornell answered with emphasis:
“Yes, they’re friends.”
“Aren’t you all?”
“Some of us knew each other before we came here,” was her cryptic reply. Then she added pensively: “Six months ago you’d never have found Sybil Saunders looking at a sunset. She was the brightest thing!”
“Awful misfortune that what happened to her.”
She gave a derisive sound at the inadequacy of the word: