So fine was the morning except for a streak of windhere and there that the sea and sky looked all onefabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the sky, orthe clouds had dropped down into the sea. A steamerfar out at sea had drawn in the air a great scroll ofsmoke which stayed there curving and circlingdecoratively, as if the air were a fine gauze whichheld things and kept them softly in its mesh, onlygently swaying them this way and that. And ashappens sometimes when the weather is very fine,the cliffs looked as if they were conscious of the ships,and the ships looked as if they were conscious of thecliffs, as if they signalled to each other some secretmessage of their own. For sometimes quite close tothe shore, the Lighthouse looked this morning in thehaze an enormous distance away.

‘Where are they now?’ Lily thought, looking out tosea. Where was he, that very old man who had gonepast her silently, holding a brown paper parcel underhis arm? The boat was in the middle of the bay.