"I am always sorry to kill things, and they are so pretty," she said, as they crept cautiously up the side of the nearest hummock. "But they are very good and I suppose one must eat."
"Or starve. Now—see!" and he jumped down into the hollow, which scurried into life under his feet, and came back in a moment with a couple of rabbits which he had already knocked on the head.
"Poor little things!" she said, stroking the soft fur.
"They were dead before they knew it.... Our lake ends there," he said, pointing it out to her from where they stood on top of the hummock. "But the island goes on and on, all just the same as this as far as you can see."
"It looks very lonely ... but I like it," and she sat long, with her hands clasped round her knees, gazing out over the wandering yellow line of sandhills, and the slow-heaving seas which broke in white-fringed ripples along the beach.
"And you left no ties behind you there in England?" she asked suddenly, showing where her thoughts had been.
"No ties whatever. Friends in plenty, but nothing more. When my father died I was quite alone in the world."
She nodded fellow-feelingly, and they sauntered back in a somewhat closer intimacy of understanding and liking for one another.
XXX
Macro had had a good day out there, and returned in the best of humours with himself and as hungry as usual.