aureole. For this also was most beautiful--so beautiful that it stirred
him strangely.

"It is like----" she began, and broke off suddenly.

"What is it like?" he asked.

"It is like finding truth at last," she answered, speaking as much to
herself as to him. "Why, one might make an allegory out of it. We wander
in mist and darkness shaping a vague course for home. And then suddenly
the mists are blown away, glory fills the air, and there is no more
doubt, only before us is a splendour making all things clear and
lighting us over a deathless sea. It sounds rather too grand," she
added, with a charming little laugh; "but there is something in it
somewhere, if only I could express myself. Oh, look!"

As she spoke a heavy storm-cloud rolled over the vanishing rim of the
sun. For a moment the light struggled with the eclipsing cloud, turning
its dull edge to the hue of copper, but the cloud was too strong and the
light vanished, leaving the sea in darkness.

"Well," he said, "your allegory would have a dismal end if you worked it
out. It is getting as dark as pitch, and there's a good deal in _that_,
if only _I_ could express myself."

Beatrice dropped poetry, and came down to facts in a way that was very
commendable.

"There is a squall coming up, Mr. Bingham," she said; "you must paddle
as hard as you can. I do not think we are more than two miles from