"I'm sitting at my desk writing. It's no use lying in bed when you can't sleep. I have just been to the cupboard and seen that silly childish scrawl. I wish I could obliterate it. I remember the day I wrote it. Sent to my room for two days and nights because I had committed some crime. I can't even recall what now.

"I'm introspective tonight and because of Gwennol. Gwennol is in love and watching her has shown me clearly what has been wrong in my life. No one ever loved me—except perhaps my mother and when she died there was absolutely no one else. That's what I want more than anything—just someone to love me. Because nobody does, I do wild things. I suddenly lose my temper and scream. I just want someone to hate me if they won't love me. At least they're taking notice of me then.

"I'm thinking of Jago as I write this. He has changed towards me. He is being very kind. Not that he was unkind before. He just didn't notice me. Two days ago he rode round the Island with me and talked about things in that way he has—as though it's just about the most important thing in the world.

"I was excited when we came back to the castle. Why is Jago suddenly becoming interested in me?

"Yesterday Fenwick was in the garden sitting on the wicker seat by the pond. I went up to him because it is unusual to see him without my father.

" 'Where is my father today?' I asked.

" 'He's having a day in bed, Miss Silva.'

"'Is he...less well?'

" 'He's a very sick man, Miss Silva.'

" 'I know he had a stroke some time ago.'

" 'It's crippled him and now ...'

" 'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I wish he would see me.'

"Fenwick shook his head. 'Don't come to his room whatever you do, Miss. That would just about finish him, the state he's in now.'

" 'Do you know why he hates me so?' I asked.

"He shrugged his shoulders.

" 'I suppose he wanted a son,' I suggested. 'Most people seem to.'

" 'Maybe he did,' said Fenwick. 'But he's not one for children.'

"Fenwick was anxious, I could see. I wondered whether he was asking himself what he would do if my father died. My father couldn't do without Fenwick, as Jago had said. But what would Fenwick do without my father?

"I wouldn't say this to anyone, but I can write it. Oh, how careful I shall have to be with these notebooks. It's a good thing no one is interested in what I do. I think Jago is contemplating asking me to marry him."

I put down the notebook. I didn't want to read about Silva and Jago. It was prying into his life and hers. Well, I had already done the latter. What I really felt, I suppose, was that I was going to read something which I was not going to like.

Jago and Silva! I hadn't thought of that.

I stared at the book in my hand. I shouldn't be reading this. Why had Slack given it to me? Why had Silva given the books to Slack?

There must be a reason.

"I met him today. I went over to the mainland and he came to the inn. He is so distinguished and handsome. I couldn't believe he could be interested in me. We had wine and saffron cakes and we talked so much. Why didn't we hire horses and go riding together, he said.

"What a day it was! We had a snack at the Corn Dolly Inn. A beautiful romantic place with those lovely Stonen Chills on the table and the corn dollies hanging about the place. Cider and pasties. I had never known them taste so good.

"He said: 'We must do this again.'

"Is it possible to be in love so soon?"

She is in love with Michael Hydrock, I thought. Was he in love with her? Or was he merely being his charming, courteous self? Oh poor Silva. I hope she was not badly hurt.

I turned the pages.

"Who wants to write when one is happy? He loves me. He said he does. It is all so exciting. He says we shall be together and everything is going to be different. I talked to him about my father and life at the castle.

"Life is wonderful."

There was a further gap. Then I read:

"The artist was on the mainland today. He asked us to Blue Rock and he was very kind and hospitable. He showed us his studio full of his paintings of birds and pictures of the sea and the islands. He said he hoped we'd come again.

"It was a lovely day. It always is when we are together."

Another gap. Then:

"I wish I hadn't started writing all this now. It seems pointless, I think that before I was just brooding on my unhappiness, enjoying my misery if that's not a contradiction, but it fits the case. Now it's all over. I'm so happy I just love everybody.

"Today I looked up at my father's window and he was there. He looked very ill and I thought: 'Shall I tell him?' But I was afraid to go up. I remembered Fenwick's saying that it would just about finish him off. I wouldn't want that on my conscience... now."

There was no more writing in the book.

Although I felt I had come closer to Silva, what had happened on that fateful night of the storm was more than ever a mystery. Why had she taken a boat out when she had known she was risking her life?

There seemed one answer. She had been desperate. Could it possibly have been that after all that sudden and new-found happiness she had been bitterly disillusioned and she had made up her mind to embark onto the sea and let that fierce and entirely indifferent element do what it could with her?

My sad little sister! How I wished I could have been with her to listen to her story of joy and sorrow. I was certain that I should have been able to help her.

I put the exercise books into a drawer and locked it, for I did not want anyone else to read them.

Then I tried to piece together what I had read and ask myself why Slack, who must have known something of her story, had given them to me.

Was it some sort of warning? He was a strange boy. Sometimes I thought he was merely simple as most people believed him to be; at others I thought he was unusually perceptive.

Silva had disappeared on the night of the storm. Was he drawing some comparison between us? Silva went out in a boat presumably and the boat came back without her. One day perhaps another boat would be washed up. On its side would be painted the name Ellen.

She had gone to the mainland and he whose name she did not mention had been kind to her. He loved her. she had written. He had told her so. She was not the kind to imagine that someone loved her. In fact, I think it would be rather difficult for a man to convince her that he did. They had met; they had gone to the Corn Dolly together and he must have told her he loved her then. And yet she had gone out in a boat to face almost certain death.

Why?

In desperation? Had she, the child who had never felt wanted and suddenly found someone whom she believed loved her at last, discovered that she had been deceived. Had the discovery been beyond endurance? Or had someone lured her in some way to go out and risk her life?

A vision of Jenifry's face when she had seen me saying goodbye to Michael Hydrock after he had brought me home to the Island, rose before me.

Gwennol was in love with him; Jenifry wanted the most eligible bachelor in the neighborhood for her daughter. How strange that Silva's boat should have come back without her and that I should be caught in a leaking boat and fancy I saw dissolving sugar there.

I was beginning to feel very uneasy.

Jago rowed me over to Sanctuary Island.

"You haven't been on the sea since the accident," he said. "I've noticed that."

"I still remember it vividly. There were some moments of sheer terror when I thought it was the end of me."

"My poor Ellen! But you don't feel afraid with me."

"I've no doubt," I told him, "that if we overturned you'd bring me safely in."

"I only hope, Ellen," he said very seriously, "that whenever you need me I shall be at hand."

We came to the island and he helped me out of the boat. "Do you remember when we came here before?" he asked.

"Yes, it was then that we met the artist from Blue Rock."

"So we did."

"I'veseen some of his pictures since in shop windows on the mainland. I thought them rather fine. Do you like them?"

"Why yes. He's quite a good artist, I believe. Ellen, tell me, are you really settling into the life of the Island? Am I right in thinking you are getting rather fond of it?"

"I am very interested, particularly now that I'm getting to know the people. They talk to me and I find that appealing. I suppose it's because it makes me feel I belong."

"You do belong."

"Yes, I suppose so, but I've only just come here and having never known my father ..." I frowned. "He doesn't seem to have been a very popular person."

"You're thinking of your mother's leaving him as she did. As a matter of fact, I knew as soon as I saw her that she would never fit into our way of life. She wanted more gaiety and a more lively existence."

"She didn't get much of that with my grandmother. My father didn't seem to care much for his children and that seems unnatural."

"He was a very sick man."

"I know he had a stroke, but before he was sick he didn't seem very fond of them."

"He was sick for a long time. He was never the same after your mother went, taking you with her."

"He still had my half sister."

"Silva was an odd girl and he never liked her."

"Why not?"

I didn't want to tell him that I had seen the notebooks. That was a secret between Slack and myself, and not knowing that, he could not understand why I had such a clear picture of my father.