To Caius the secret chamber was enchanted ground. He stepped to its
window, framed in waving grasses, and saw the high tide lapping just a
little way below. It was into this place of safety that Josephine had
crept when she had disappeared from his view before he could mount the
cliff to see whither she went. She had often stood where he now stood,
half afraid, half audacious, in that curious dress of hers, before she
summoned up courage to slip into the sea for daylight or moonlight
wanderings.
He turned round to hear the gaunt woman beside him again talking
excitedly. Upon a bit of rusty iron that still held its place on the
wall hung what he had taken to be a heap of sacking. She took this down
now and displayed it with a cunning look.
"I made it myself," she said, "it holds one up wonderful in the water;
but now I've been a-dying so long the buoys have burst."
Caius pityingly took the garment from her. Her mad grief, and another
woman's madcap pleasure, made it a sacred thing. His extreme curiosity
found satisfaction in discovering that the coarse foundation was
covered with a curious broidery of such small floats as might, with
untiring industry, be collected in a farmhouse: corks and small pieces
of wood with holes bored through them were fastened at regular
intervals, not without some attempt at pattern, and between them the
bladders of smaller animals, prepared as fishermen prepare them for
their nets.
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