"It is," laughed Margaret. "Are you coming, Hennie?"
"I'll—I'll risk it if Mr. Graeme will personally conduct me. He's in charge of us, you know."
"Certainly!" and he held out his hand to her, and then looked at Margaret. "Will you please wait here till I come back for you?" And catching, as he thought, a sign of mutiny in her face,—"Although it's perfectly safe it's perhaps just as well to have company the first time you cross."
"Very well," she said, and Miss Penny clung convulsively to the strong unwavering hand while she gingerly trod the narrow way, and the dogs raced half-way to meet them.
"Go away!" she shrieked, and the dogs turned on their pivots and sped back.
"Now, you see!" he said, when she stood safe on the rounded shoulder of Little Sark. "Where was the trouble?"
"It's perfectly easy, Meg," cried Miss Penny, uplifted with her accomplishment.
He wondered whether she would vouchsafe him her hand or attempt the passage alone. But she put her hand into his without hesitation, and thenceforth and for ever the Coupée held for him a touch of sacred glamour. For the soft hand throbbed in his, and every throb thrilled right up into his heart and set it dancing to some such tune as that which sang in David when he danced before the Ark. But his hand was firm, and his head was steady, for that which he held in charge was the dearest thing in life to him.
Three hundred blessed feet was the span of the Coupée. How fervently he wished them three thousand—ay, three million! For every step accorded him a throb, and heart-throbs such as these are among the precious things of life.
Neither of them spoke one word. Common-places were very much out of place, and the things that were in his heart he might not speak—yet.