“All right!” I said, from rapidly emptying lungs. “I’m okay.”

She rose and dusted herself off as I recovered.

“I heard —” she began.

“I gather. But I just caught my heel. That’s all.”

“I couldn’t tell.”

“Everything’s fine. Thanks.”

We starred down the stair side by side, but something was changed. I now harbored a suspicion I did not like but could not dispel. Not yet, anyway. What I had in mind was too dangerous, if I should prove correct.

So instead, “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain,” I said.

“What?” she asked. “I didn’t understand…”

“I said, ‘It’s a fine day to be walking with a pretty lady.”

She actually blushed.

Then, “What language did you say it in… the first time.

“English,” I replied.

“I’ve never studied it. I told you that when we were talking about Alice.”

“I know. Just being whimsical,” I answered.

The beach, nearer now, was tiger-striped and shiny in places. A froth of foam retreated along its slopes while birds cried and dipped to examine the waves’ leavings. Sails bobbed in the offing, and a small curtain of rain rippled in the southeast, far out at sea. The winds had ceased their noise-making, though they still came upon us with cloak-wrapping force.

We continued in silence until we had reached the bottom. We stepped away then, moving a few paces onto the sand.

“The harbor’s in that direction,” I said, gesturing to my right, westward, “and there’s a church off that way,” I added, indicating the dark building where Caine’s service had been held and where seamen sometimes came to pray for safe voyages.