For the following two days and nights a certain tension, dissipating before the advent of the time-traveller but since restored, existed between the lovers (for they were lovers — only her upbringing denied it) and they slept fitfully, the pair of them, on either side of a frond-fondled limestone rock, having to fear nothing but the inquisitive attentions of the little molluscs and trilobites whose own lives now were free from danger, thanks to the hamper, crammed with cans and bottles enough to sustain a good-sized expedition for a month. No large beasts, no unexpected turn of the weather, threatened our Adam and our Eve; Eve, alone, knew inner conflict: Adam, simple bewilderment; but then he was used to bewilderment, and sudden moods or twists of fate had been the stuff of his existence until only recently — yet his spirits were not what they had been.

They rose somewhat, those spirits, at dawn this morning — for the beauty, in its subtlety, excelled any creation of fin de cosmos artifice. A huge half-sun filled the horizon line so that the sky surrounding it shone a thousand shades of copper, while its rays, spread upon the sea, seemed individually coloured — blues, ochres, greys, pinks — until they reached the beach and merged again, as if at apex, to make the yellow sand glare rainbow white, turn the limestone to shimmering silver and make individual leaves and stems of the fronds a green that seemed near-sentient, it was so alive; and there was a human figure at the core of this vision, outlined against the pulsing semi-circle of dark scarlet, the velvet dress murky red amber, the auburn hair a-flame, the white hands and neck reflecting the hues, delicate hint of the palest of poppies. And there was music, sonorous — it was her voice; she declaimed a favourite verse, its subject a trifle at odds with the ambience.

Where the red worm woman wailed for wild revenge,

While the surf surged sullen 'neath moon-silver'd sky,

Where her harsh voice, once a sweet voice, sang,

Now was I.

And did her ghost on that grey, cold morn,

Did her ghost slide by?

Rapt, Jherek straightened his back and pushed aside the frock-coat which had covered him through the night; to see his love thus, in a setting to match the perfection of her beauty, sent all other considerations helter-skelter from his head; his own eyes shone: his face shone. He waited for more, but she was silent, tossing back her locks, shaking sand from her hem, pursing those loveliest of lips.

"Well?" he said.

Slowly, through iridescence, the face looked up, from shadow into light. Her mouth was a question.

"Amelia?" He dared the name. Her lids fell.

"What is it?" she murmured.

"Did it? Was it her ghost? I await the resolution."

The lips curved now, perhaps a touch self-consciously, but the eyes continued to study the sand which she stirred with the sharp toe of her partly unbuttoned boot. "Wheldrake doesn't say. It's a rhetorical question…"

"A very sober poem, is it not?"

A sense of superiority mingled with her modesty, causing the lashes to rise and fall rapidly for a moment. "Most good poems are sober, Mr. Carnelian, if they are to convey — significance. It speaks of death, of course. Wheldrake wrote much of death — and died, himself, prematurely. My cousin gave me the Posthumous Poems for my twentieth birthday. Shortly afterwards, she was taken from us, also, by consumption."

"Is all good literature, then, about death?"

"Serious literature."

"Death is serious?"

"It is final, at any rate." But she shocked herself, judging this cynical, and recovered with: "Although really, it is only the beginning — of our real life, our eternal life…"

She turned to regard the sun, already higher and less splendid.

"You mean, at the End of Time? In our own little home?"

"Never mind." She faltered, speaking in a higher, less natural tone. "It is my punishment, I suppose, to be denied, in my final hours, the company of a fellow Christian." But there was some insincerity to all this. The food she had consumed during the past two days had mellowed her. She had almost welcomed the simpler terrors of starvation to the more complex dangers of giving herself up to this clown, this innocent (oh, yes, and perhaps this noble, manly being, for his courage, his kindness went without question). She strove, with decreasing success, to recreate that earlier, much more suitable, mood of resigned despondency.

"I interrupted you." He leaned back against his rock. "Forgive me. It was so delicious, to wake to the sound of your voice. Won't you go on?"

She cleared her throat and faced the sea again.

What will you say to me, child of the moon,

When by the bright river we stand?

When forest leaves breathe harmonies to the night wind's croon.

Will you give me your hand, child of the moon?

Will you give me your hand?

But her performance lacked the appropriate resonance, certainly to her own ears, and she delivered the next verse with even less conviction.

Will you present your pyre to me, spawn of the sun,

While the sky is in full flame?

While the day's heat the brain deceives, and the drugged bees hum.

Will you grant me your name, spawn of the sun?

Will you grant me your name?

Jherek blinked. "You have lost me entirely, I fear…" The sun was fully risen, the scene fled, though pale gold light touched sky and sea still, and the day was calm and sultry. "Oh, what things I could create with such inspiration, if only my power rings were active. Vision upon vision, and all for you, Amelia!"

"Have you no literature, at the End of Time?" she asked. "Are your arts only visual?"

"We converse," he said. "You have heard us."

"Conversation has been called an art, yet…"

"We do not write it down," he said, "if that is what you mean. Why should we? Similar conversations often arise — similar observations are made afresh. Does one discover more through the act of making the marks I have seen you make? If so, perhaps I should…"

"It will pass the time," she said, "if I teach you to write and read."

"Certainly," he agreed.

She knew the questions he had asked had been innocent, but they struck her as just. She laughed.

"Oh, dear, Mr. Carnelian. Oh, dear!"

He was content not to judge her mood to but to share it. He laughed with her, springing up. He advanced. She awaited him. He stopped, when a few steps separated them. He was serious now, and smiling.

She fingered her neck. "There is more to literature than conversation, however. There are stories."

"We make our own lives into stories, at the End of Time. We have the means. Would you not do the same, if you could?"

"Society demands that we do not."

"Why so?"

"Perhaps because the stories would conflict, one with the other. There are so many of us — there."

"Here," he said, "there are but two."

"Our tenancy in this — this Eden — is tentative. Who knows when…?"

"Logically, if we are torn away, then we shall be borne to the End of Time, not to 1896. And what is there, waiting, but Eden, too?"

"No, I should not call it that."

They stared, now, eye to eye. The sea whispered. It was louder than their words.

He could not move, though he sought to go forward. Her stance held him off; it was the set of her chin, the slight lift of one shoulder.

"We could be alone, if we wished it."

"There should be no choice, in Eden."

"Then, here, at least…" His look was charged, it demanded; it implored.

"And take sin with us, out of Eden?"

"No sin, if by that you mean that which give your fellows pain. What of me?"

"We suffer. Both." The sea seemed very loud, the voice faint as a wind through ferns. "Love is cruel."

"No!" His shout broke the silence. He laughed. "That is nonsense! Fear is cruel! Fear alone!"

"Oh, I have so much of that!" She called out, lifting her face to the sky, and she began to laugh, even as he seized her, taking her hands in his, bending to kiss that cheek.

Tears striped her; she wiped them clear with her sleeve, and the kiss was forestalled. Instead she began to hum a tune, and she placed a hand on his shoulder, leaving her other hand in his. She dipped and led him in a step or two. "Perhaps my fate is sealed," she said. She smiled at him, a conspiracy of love and pain and some self-pity. "Oh, come, Mr. Carnelian, I shall teach you to dance. If this is Eden, let us enjoy it while we may!"

Brightening considerably, Jherek allowed her to lead him in the steps.

Soon he was laughing, a child in love and, for the moment, not the mature individual, the man whose command could conquer.

Disaster (if it was disaster) delayed, they pranced, beside the Palaeozoic seaside, an improvised polka.

But it was only delayed. Both were expectant, fulfilment, consummation, hovered. And Jherek sang a wordless song; within moments she would be his bride, his pride, his celebration.

The song was soon to die on his lips. They rounded a clump of flimsy vegetation, a pavement of yellow rock, and came to a sudden and astounded stop. Both glared, both felt vitality flow from them to be replaced by taut rage. Mrs. Underwood, sighing, withdrew into the stiff velvet of her dress.

"We are fated," she murmured. "We are!"

They continued to glare at the unwitting back of the one who had frustrated their idyll. He remained unaware of their wrath, their presence.

The shirtsleeves and trousers rolled up to elbow and knee respectively, the bowler hat fixed firmly on the heavy head, the briar pipe between the lips, the newcomer was paddling contentedly in the amniotic ocean.

As they watched, he took a large white handkerchief from the pocket of his dark, serge trousers (waistcoat and jacket, shoes and socks, lay neat and incongruous on the beach behind), shook it out, tied a small knot at each corner, removed his hat and spread the handkerchief over his cropped and balding scalp. This accomplished, he began to hum — "Pom te pom, pom pom pom, te pom pom" — wading a little further through the shallow water, pausing to raise a red and goose-pimpled foot and to brush at two or three wheat-coloured trilobites which had begun to climb his leg.

"Funny little beggars," he was heard to mutter, but did not seem to mind their curiosity.

Mrs. Underwood was pale. "How is it possible?" A vicious whisper. "He has pursued us through Time!" With one hand, she unclenched the other. "My respect for Scotland Yard, I suppose, increases…"

Forgetting his private disappointment in favour of his social responsibilities (he had developed proprietorial feelings toward the Palaeozoic) Jherek called:

"Good afternoon, Inspector Springer."

Mrs. Underwood reached a hand for his arm, as if to forestall him, but too late. Inspector Springer, the almost seraphic expression fading to be replaced by his more familiar stern and professional mask, turned unwillingly.

Bowler forgotten in his left hand, he removed his pipe from his lips. He peered. He blinked. He heaved a sigh, fully the equal of their own most recent sighs. Happiness fled away.

"Good 'eavens!"

"Heavens, if you prefer." Jherek welcomed correction, for he still studied the mores of the nineteenth century.

"I thought it was 'eaven." Inspector Springer's slap at an exploring trilobite was less tolerant than before. "But now I'm beginning to doubt it. More like 'ell…" He remembered the presence of Mrs.

Underwood. He stared mournfully at a wet trouser leg. "The other place, I mean."

There was a tinge of pleased malice in her tone: "You think yourself dead, Inspector Springer?"

"The deduction fitted the facts, madam."

Not without dignity, he placed the bowler on top of the knotted handkerchief. He peered into the pipe and, satisfied that it had gone out, slipped it into a pocket. Her irony was wasted; he became a trifle more confidential.

"An 'eart-attack, I presumed, brought about by the stress of recent events. I was jest questioning them foreigners — the little anarchists with only one eye — or three, if you look at it another way — when it seemed to me they vanished clear away." He cleared his throat, lowered his voice a fraction.

"Well, I turned to call me sergeant, felt a bit dizzy meself, and the next thing I knows, 'ere I am in 'eaven."

He seemed, then, to recall his previous relationship with the pair. He straightened, resentful. "Or so I deduced until you turned up a minute ago." He waded forward until he stood on glinting sand. He began to roll down his trousers. He spoke crisply. "Well then," he demanded, "what is the explanation? Briefly, mind. Nothing fancy."

"It is simple enough." Jherek was glad to explain. "We have been hurled through Time, that is all. To a pre-Dawn Age. That is, to a period before Man existed at all. Millions of years. The Upper or —?" He turned to Mrs. Underwood for help.

"Probably the Lower Devonian," she said. She was off-hand. "The stranger confirmed it."

"A warp in Time," Jherek continued. "In which you were caught, as we were. Admitting no large paradoxes, Time ejected us from your period. Doubtless, the Lat were so ejected. It was unfortunate that you were in the proximity…"

Inspector Springer covered his ears, heading for his boots as if towards a haven. "Oh, Gawd! Not again. It is 'ell! It is!"

"I am beginning to share your view, Inspector." Mrs. Underwood was more than cool. She turned on her heel and started to walk in the direction of the frond forest at the top of the beach. Normally her conscience would sharply rule out such obvious tricks, but she had been thwarted; she had become desperate — she gave Jherek the impression that he was to blame for Inspector Springer's arrival, as if, perhaps, by speaking of sin he had called forth Satan into Eden.

Frozen, Jherek was trapped by the manoeuvre as neatly as any Victorian beloved. "Amelia," was all he could pipe.

She did not, of course, reply.

Inspector Springer had reached his boots. He sat down beside them; he pulled free, from one of them, a grey woollen sock. He addressed the sock as he tried to pull it over his damp foot. "What I can't work out," he mused, "is whether I'm technically still on duty or not."

Mrs. Underwood had come to the frond forest. Determinedly she disappeared into the rustling depths. Jherek made up his mind to stumble in wretched pursuit. The host in him hesitated for only a second:

"Perhaps we'll see you again, Inspector?"

"Not if I —"

But the high-pitched scream interrupted both. A glance was exchanged. Inspector Springer forgot differences, obeyed instincts, leapt to his feet, hobbling after Jherek as he flung himself forward, racing for the source of the scream.

But already Mrs. Underwood was flying from the forest, outrage and horror remoulding her beauty, stopping with a gasp when she saw salvation; mutely, she pointed back into the agitated foliage.

The fronds parted. A single eye glared out at them, its three pupils fixed steadily, perhaps lecherously, upon the panting form of Mrs. Underwood.

"Mibix," said a guttural, insinuating voice.

"Ferkit," replied another.