CHAPTER XIV.
THE FLAME OF LOVE Diana's gaze wandered idly over the blue stretch of water, as it lay beneath the blazing August sun, while the sea-gulls, like streaks of white light, wheeled through the shimmering haze of the atmosphere.
Her hands were loosely clasped around her knees, and a little evanescent smile played about her lips.

Behind her, the great red cliffs of Culver Point reared up against the sapphire of the sky, and she was thinking dreamily of that day, nearly eighteen months ago, when she had been sitting in the self-same place, leaning against the self-same rock, whilst a grey waste of water crept hungrily up to her very feet, threatening to claim her as its prey.

And then Errington had come, and straightway all the danger was passed.
Looking back, it seemed as though that had always been the way of things.

Some menace had arisen, either by land or sea--or even, as at her recital, out of the very intensity of feeling which her singing had inspired--and immediately Max had intervened and the danger had been averted.
She laid her hand caressingly on the sun-warmed surface of the rock.
How many things had happened since she had last leaned against its uncomfortable excrescences! She felt quite affectionately towards it, as one who has journeyed far may feel towards some old landmark of his youth which he finds unaltered on his return, from wandering in strange lands.

The immutability of _things_, as compared with the constant fluctuation of life and circumstance, struck her poignantly.