She didn’t answer for a moment.  I guess she sighed, though I couldn’t hear for the gale, and her eyes grew soft, sir, so soft.

“I couldn’t,” said she.  “You looked so peaceful—­dear one.”

My cheeks and neck went hot, sir, as if a warm iron was laid on them.  I didn’t know what to say.  I began to stammer, “What do you mean—­” but she was going back down the stair, out of sight.  My God sir, and I used not to think she was good-looking!

I started to follow her.  I wanted to know what she meant.  Then I said to myself, “If I don’t go—­if I wait here—­she’ll come back.”  And I went to the weather side and stood looking out of the window.  Not that there was much to see.  It was growing dark, and the Seven Brothers looked like the mane of a running horse, a great, vast, white horse running into the wind.  The air was a-welter with it.  I caught one peep of a fisherman, lying down flat trying to weather the ledge, and I said, “God help them all to-night,” and then I went hot at sound of that “God.”

I was right about her, though.  She was back again.  I wanted her to speak first, before I turned, but she wouldn’t.  I didn’t hear her go out; I didn’t know what she was up to till I saw her coming outside on the walk-around, drenched wet already.  I pounded on the glass for her to come in and not be a fool; if she heard she gave no sign of it.

There she stood, and there I stood watching her.  Lord, sir—­was it just that I’d never had eyes to see?  Or are there women who bloom?  Her clothes were shining on her, like a carving, and her hair was let down like a golden curtain tossing and streaming in the gale, and there she stood with her lips half open, drinking, and her eyes half closed, gazing straight away over the Seven Brothers, and her shoulders swaying, as if in tune with the wind and water and all the ruin.  And when I looked at her hands over the rail, sir, they were moving in each other as if they bathed, and then I remembered, sir.

A cold horror took me.  I knew now why she had come back again.  She wasn’t a woman—­she was a devil.  I turned my back on her.  I said to myself:  “It’s time to light up.  You’ve got to light up”—­like that, over and over, out loud.  My hand was shivering so I could hardly find a match; and when I scratched it, it only flared a second and then went out in the back draught from the open door.  She was standing in the doorway, looking at me.  It’s queer, sir, but I felt like a child caught in mischief.

“I—­I—­was going to light up,” I managed to say, finally.

“Why?” said she.  No, I can’t say it as she did.

“Why?” said I. “My God!”

She came nearer, laughing, as if with pity, low, you know.  “Your God?  And who is your God?  What is God?  What is anything on a night like this?”

I drew back from her.  All I could say anything about was the light.

“Why not the dark?” said she.  “Dark is softer than light—­tenderer—­dearer than light.  From the dark up here, away up here in the wind and storm, we can watch the ships go by, you and I. And you love me so.  You’ve loved me so long, Ray.”