“I have no idea,” she said, politely insolent, and made to go on.
Lillian Gueste’s sharp scrutiny had taken in all the girl’s misery, and supposed a scene. Her idea of what had been Walter’s part in it made her, with a revulsion of relief, almost amiable.
“You can’t get around that way,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the point. The vexation was back on her face. “The tide is in.”
The girl’s eye ranged back along the beach. The black cliffs seemed suddenly to have marched seaward.
“Well, you can’t get back that way,” she said. “The water was up to the second point when I came through an hour ago—it’s over the quicksand.”
“Quicksand?” Lillian looked at her blankly. “Then what can we do?”
“Get around there,” said Blanche, waving back to the near point.
“We can’t.” Irritation and unbelief were in Mrs. Gueste’s voice.
“I’ve done it before. It’s easy. Come on.” Blanche was nonchalant in the face of the encroaching sea. The gulls were screaming above their heads, the sound of shattering water was in their ears, as they rode forward.
At the shoulder of the point the wind met them, and the inrush of the ocean. Here the beach sloped suddenly. The cliffs came out in a convex sweep of several rods, with a sharp jut of rock thrust out from the midst of it, like a fish’s fin. Over it, up to the cliff face, the water fawned and leaped, and in its sucking recoil left bare for an instant a narrow neck of sand.