The Rocks of Valpré

The Odds by Ethel M. Dell

The Tidal Wave and Other Stories by Ethel M. Dell

From the book:When you come to reflect that there are only a few planks between you and the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, it makes you feel sort of pensive. "I beg your pardon?" The stranger, smoking his cigarette in the lee of the deck-cabins, turned his head sharply in the direction of the voice. He encountered the wide, unembarrassed gaze of a girl's grey eyes. She had evidently just come up on deck. "I beg yours," she rejoined composedly. "I thought at first you were some one else." He shrugged his shoulders, and turned away. Quite obviously he was not disposed to be sociable upon so slender an introduction. The girl, however, made no move to retreat. She stood thoughtfully tapping on the boards with the point of her shoe. "Were you playing cards last night down in the saloon?" she asked presently. "I was looking on." He threw the words over his shoulder, not troubling to turn. The girl shivered. The morning air was damp and chill.

A long, green wave ran up, gleaming like curved glass in the sunlight, and broke in a million sparkles against a shelf of shingle. Above the shingle rose the soft cliffs, clothed with scrubby grass and crowned with gorse.

The Keeper of the Door by Ethel M. Dell

Fast-paced and wildly romantic, The Lamp in the Desert follows beautiful young Stella as she travels to British Colonial India to visit her brother, marries a man with an existing secret marriage—only to face even worse problems. Meanwhile, a dashing captain has fallen in love with her, but he must leave on a military mission. Will he return and marry Stella?