T0 THE LIGHTHOUsEhead. " We shall need a big dish to-night.Where is it-the blue dish? " She alone spokethe truth; to her alone could he speak it. Thatwas the source of her everlasting attraction forhim, perhaps; she was a person to whom onecould say what came into one’s head. But all thetime he thought of her, he was conscious ofhis father following his thought, shadowing it,making it shiver and falter.

At last he ceased to think; there he sat withhis hand on the tiller in the sun, staring at theLighthouse, powerless to move, powerless to flickoff these grains of misery which settled on hismind one after another. A rope seemed tobind him there, and his father had knotted itand he could only escape by taking a knifeand plunging it .... But at that moment thesail swung slowly round, filled slowly out, theboat seemed to shake herseli and then to moveoH·` half conscious in her sleep, and then shewoke and shot through the waves. The relief wasextraordinary. They all seemed to fall away fromeach other again and to be at their ease and thefishing-lines slanted taut across the side of theboat. But his father did not rouse himself. Heonly raised his right hand mysteriously high inthe air, and let it fall upon his knee again as if hewere conducting some secret symphony.288