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The three sat in an uncomfortable silence until Neil moored to Kylsaig slipway.

Judith was in a hurry to be off. “Goodnight, Neil. And thank you, Mairi, for fetching us.” She started up the path across the island.

“You can’t go alone,” Neil exclaimed. “Come along with me first to Mairi’s home, then I’ll take you to yours. It’s already so late that another half hour won’t make much difference.”

Judith winced at Neil’s monstrous cruelty to the other girl. Surely it was enough that Mairi not only knew of the evening cruise, but had come to fetch them both from the mainland. Now she was expected to make one of a threesome, to be taken home and then watch Judith go off alone with Neil.

“I know my way quite well,” Judith declared tersely. “The least you can do is go home with Mairi after she’s saved us from being stranded. Goodnight.”

She gave him no further chance of argument.

She sighed. The evening had started off badly with the delay, then the chilliness on the steamer. Now Judith could only guess at the scene between Mairi and Neil on the way home. To some extent she was to blame. Yesterday she had flirted with Neil, although without intent. His emotional mood following confession of his broken engagement needed the outlet she had been apparently so willing to provide. She need not have remained passive in his arms and she ought to have refused tonight’s cruise, stayed at home or told him to take Mairi instead.

Yet if she had done just that, he would instantly have imagined that she was retreating in order to encourage him to pursue. Or was that self-flattery on her part?

Judith was prepared next morning to fend off Barbara’s disconcerting questions or Andy’s teasing, but nobody even mentioned the cruise. Something far more important had happened.

The weather was wet and blustery—surprising to Judith after last night’s spectacular sunset—and Robbie, after ostensibly starting off for school, dashed back into the house with the news that half the new slipway was washed away.

“It can’t be!” Judith jumped to her feet. “Stuart was tarring it only the day before yesterday.”

“That part’s all right,” Robbie told her. “It’s broken away at the top.”

“What were you doing down there?” Andy asked, an amused twinkle in his eyes. “Not on your way to school, unless you were making a circuit of the island.”

“Matter of fact,” Robbie explained with offhand casualness, “I went down to see if it was firm. I promised Stuart I’d keep an eye on it and let him know if anything went wrong.” This morning Robbie was very much the handy assistant.

“H’m,” Andy murmured. “If you think it’s serious enough, then, you’d better get down to the ferry telephone and tell Stuart that his Clerk of the Works is reporting damage.”

Robbie was out of the door like a flash.

Andy smiled at Judith. “I doubt if it’s as bad as he makes out, but Robbie likes to feel important sometimes. Stuart’s well used to his work being washed away. There can’t be much damage, though. The tide wasn’t all that strong.”

But Andy was wrong, and Robbie had not exaggerated. Judith went down there as soon as she could spare time and joined Andy and Stuart, assuring her own welcome by taking a flask of coffee. Neil was also there, but remained a little apart from the others.

The boulders and slabs of stone that Stuart had placed so carefully into position seemed to have been flung about. Either the sea was in a violent mood at high tide or else human hands had caused the damage.

Stuart looked defeated, but smiled mechanically as he took the mug of coffee from Judith.

“Was it deliberate damage? Sabotage?” she asked.

“It could be.”

“It might just as easily have been caused by the sea,” Neil suggested. “You didn’t really choose your tides carefully enough.”

“I. had to choose the calm weather as well as think about tides,” retorted Stuart. “The two don’t always go together.”

“Well, one can’t have everything.” Neil gave Stuart an unfriendly glance, then his expression changed and there was a hint of triumph in his smile, Judith thought.

“Well, I expect I can start again,” Stuart decided. “At least the lower part has held.”

Judith experienced an unexpected sense of gladness, an admiration of Stuart’s refusal to accept defeat.

Neil shook his head. “Why don’t you give up the idea? It’s obvious by now, surely, that no pier or slipway is going to be a practical proposition on this side of the island.”

“It was practical enough in the old days, I doubt if the sea is any different now. It fell away because nobody repaired it.”

Neil laughed shortly and seemed about to add a further, possibly even more offensive, remark, but changed his mind and strolled away.

Andy and Stuart began a technical conversation about a new boat that Andy had a chance of buying, and Judith left them to discuss the advantages of “clinker-built” or “carvel-built” for rough weather between the islands.

At lunch time when Andy came in, he took Judith aside.

“What’s your opinion now about Barbara’s health?”

“I think she’s improving all the time,” Judith answered. He tapped his knee thoughtfully. “I don’t really know what to do for the best—sell out and go south and make a new start, or stay here and risk Barbara’s happiness.” She gazed at him with affection. “You’re never going to be happy again, Andy, living in a suburb and trying to sell whatever products you think somebody wants. You like it here, don’t you?”

“That isn’t the point. I have to do what’s best for Barbara—and the children.”

“But Robbie adores the life.”

“For the time being, yes. It’s still fairly new and he has a freedom he’d never know in a town. I’m thinking about the winter. I don’t think Barbara will stand another one here.”

Judith had also begun to think about her own winter plans. She could not continue to live indefinitely with Barbara and Andy at their expense, yet the thought of returning to the old routine filled her with distaste.

“Don’t tell Barbara that I’ve been toying with the idea of another boat,” he said, after a pause. “If I’m going to stay here, I shall eventually need something more reliable than the little tub I have now. If we pack up, though, I shall need all the money I can scrape together.”

Mairi came after tea, having heard from Robbie about the damage to the slipway.

“It just shows how useless it is to try to civilise Kylsaig,” Barbara said. “Even the weather has a grudge against Stuart’s schemes.”

“That’s exactly what Neil says,” agreed Mairi.

“Flying in the face of Providence, I suppose!” Judith spoke so angrily that the two women turned astonished faces towards her. “Kylsaig
was
civilised once, and people earned their living here and were happy. All that Stuart is trying to do is restore the island and make it prosperous again.”

“He’ll never do that,” Mairi said. “Neil thinks it’s too far gone—”

“Then why did he come here? Why does he stay? Come to that, why do you stay? You could teach in a more up-to-date school on the mainland, no doubt.”

“Judith!” Barbara exclaimed sharply. “You
are
attacking poor Mairi. All over Stuart’s little pier thing.”

Judith calmed herself. “Yes. I’m sorry, Mairi. I should not have flared out like that. After all, it’s probably not my business.”

When Mairi decided it was time to leave, she suggested that Judith might accompany her down to the slipway. “I’d like to see the damage for myself,” she said. “I’ve heard such wild tales from the children.”

Judith agreed, although she surmised that Mairi had something else to say out of other people’s hearing.

On the way down to the shore, Mairi talked of everything except the one topic uppermost in the minds of both girls—Neil. Judith judged it would be unkind to refer to last night’s outing until Mairi mentioned it, but at last she could tell that Mairi was groping for a lead.

“I thought you might have been coming with Neil last night,” she began boldly.

“He didn’t ask me.” Mairi’s tone was small and pathetic. “I shouldn’t have known that he was taking you on the cruise, but Mother told me.”

Judith’s anger spurted afresh against the meddlesome Mrs. Drummond.

“It wasn’t intended to be any kind of secret,” she said. All the same Judith wondered how Mrs. Drummond had discovered the fact. “Still,” she tried now to treat the subject as lightly as possible, “perhaps it was as well someone knew, or we might have been stranded on the mainland. It was very good of you to row over and fetch us.”

Suddenly Mairi had dissolved in tears.

Judith held her gently by the arms. “Mairi, don’t cry. There’s nothing you need be afraid of—about Neil and me.”

Mairi lifted pale, tear-drenched eyes. “You don’t understand how much I love him.”

“But I do, Mairi. And truly I don’t want to hurt you— or come between you and Neil. Please believe that.”

“I wish I could. I’ve seen from the first that he’s attracted to you. But before you came I know he liked me. If you hadn’t come, I might—” She broke off, staring unseeingly across the water. “I think he would have asked me to marry him.”

“I may not be here much longer,” Judith said. “Barbara is getting better and—”

“But the damage is done!” Mairi exclaimed roughly. “Even when you’ve gone, nothing will ever be the same again between Neil and me. He’ll never want to marry me now.”

Mairi burst into further sobbing, and Judith was both dismayed and embarrassed.

“Let’s sit down and talk things over,” she suggested, and they found a rough slab of dry stone among the tussocky grass.

“Tell me, Mairi, how you visualise your future—supposing you married Neil. You think he’ll stay here on Kylsaig sheep-farming while you continue as the schoolteacher?”

“Why not? There’s nothing wrong with that sort of life.” '

“No. But will it satisfy Neil? He’s been trained for something quite different. Sooner or later he’ll want to return to his profession.”

“He told
you
, then, all about his past!” Mairi’s voice was accusing.

“I know that he was a research chemist, but everybody on the island knows that.” Judith would never admit that Neil had disclosed at least as much, if not more, to herself than possibly to Mairi.

“Whatever Neil wanted to do, I’d be willing to go with him wherever he chose. A wife should be ready to sacrifice her own interests for those of her husband.” After a pause, she added, “I know my mother would be lonely without me, but there are plenty of places where she could live. She doesn’t have to stay on Kylsaig. She might even make her home with us.”

Judith almost gasped at the overwhelming blindness of this girl who was so eager to make herself into a doormat for Neil. Couldn’t she see that her own mother was trying to drive a wedge between her and Neil? It was extremely unlikely that Mrs. Drummond would ever consent to live with her daughter if her son-in-law turned out to be Neil.

Mairi had dried her eyes and recovered herself. “You must think I’m terribly foolish, but I love Neil so much that I can’t help being jealous. If it weren’t for Neil, we could be such good friends, you and I.”

“I hope we can be friends in spite of him,” Judith returned, although she had no hope of convincing Mairi of that. As long as Judith remained on Kylsaig, Mairi would be on the alert for signs of Neil’s defection.

Judith walked with the other girl to the gate at the top of the hill where the paths diverged, one down to the ferry, the other to Mairi’s cottage.

Judith knew that next day Stuart was working on the shore, trying to repair the slipway, but she did not offer to take him any refreshments until Andy suggested it.

“Susan can take something,” returned Judith.

“She’s already down there, too, with Robbie. Having those two little hindrances around is just another couple of straws on Stuart’s back. He’d be glad of somebody to cheer him up.”

“Why don’t you go yourself if you feel in such a genial mood?” she enquired.

“I’ve too much to do.” Andy vanished through the back door before she could find any further excuses.

She waited until the last possible moment, then reluctantly filled a basket with food, orange squash, a flask of tea and a bottle of beer. Then, not wanting to seem too childish, she stayed to share it all with Stuart and the children.

When the children were sure that all the food had been eaten, they hurried back to the slipway.

“You won’t let Susan fall and hurt herself, will you, Stuart?” she said, packing up the plastic boxes and cartons. “I’ve impressed on her that she mustn’t play about down here unless there’s a grown-up with her.”

He was lying back on the grass, his head pillowed on his jacket. He smiled up at the sky. “That’s an ambiguous remark. You mean I’m not grown up?”

“No.”

“Still ambiguous. Well, I’m never sure about it myself. At what point in life does one say ‘Now I’m really adult’?”

“It must be individual, surely, and different for everyone. I think you grow up in some ways and remain immature in others until, perhaps, some experience comes along to jerk you out of your immaturity.”

He rolled over on his side and looked at her. “Philosophy in ten easy lessons,” he said lazily, his eyes glinting with laughter.

“Remind me to give you the other nine some time. I must go back now. I’ve loads to do. Our telephone is still out of order and I have to go down to the ferry this afternoon and probably trip over to Cruban for the shopping.”

“If you can wait about an hour, I can fix that for you. I have my dinghy on this side and could take you straight across to Cruban. I can’t go this minute because Robbie has just mixed some cement ready for using right away and I can’t tell him I don’t want to use it.”

For some reason she wanted to refuse his offer, yet what could be more reasonable? Perhaps his consideration for Robbie’s hard work induced her to accept.

“But the children? I can’t leave them down here alone.”

“We’ll take them along with us.”

When he was nearly ready, she took Susan and Robbie back to the house so that they could change into respectable clothes for walking about in Cruban. She also took the opportunity to wear a new dress of her own making, a turquoise heavyweight cotton cut in the simplest' of styles with short sleeves and a boat-shaped neckline decorated with a single enormous button.