The following morning, the carrier's cart stopped at the cottage, and Dick, having helped the carrier to bring in a big portmanteau, burst into the sitting room with:

"Your togs have arrived, Mr. Vernon; and the carrier says that there are a couple of horses at the station. They're directed 'Drake Vernon, Esquire,' so they must be for you!"

Vernon nodded.

"That's all right," he said. "They were doing nothing in—where they were, and I thought I'd have them sent down here. I suppose I must get some one to exercise them?"

Dick's eyes sparkled and his mouth stretched in an expressive grin.

"Not much difficulty about that," he said. "For instance, I don't mind obliging you—as a favor."

Mr. Vernon smiled.

"I thought perhaps you might be so good," he said; and he added casually: "Anybody here who could be trusted to bring them from the station?"

"I know a most trustworthy person; his name is Richard Lorton, and he will go for 'em in a brace of jiffs," said Dick.

Mr. Vernon flicked a five-pound note across the table.

"There may be some carriage. By the way, one of them is a lady's nag, and I fancy they may have sent a sidesaddle."

Dick nodded and repeated the grin.

"I can get them put up at Sandy's," he said. "Sandy used to keep some stables going for post horses before the coach ran to Hartland, you know. I've got your horse there. Oh, they'll be all right. You trust to me."

"I do," said Mr. Vernon. "One moment," as Dick was rushing out to put on his well-worn riding suit. "I don't think I'd say anything about—the sidesaddle to Miss Lorton—yet."

Once again Dick nodded—a nod so full of comprehension as to be almost supernal.

Mr. Vernon went upstairs, and, with Molly's assistance, unpacked the huge portmanteau, and, when she had got out of the room, examined the contents. Strangely enough, the linen was all new and unmarked. Only on the silver fittings of the dressing case were a monogram—in which the initial "S" was decipherable—and a coronet.

"Sparling's an idiot!" Vernon muttered. "Why didn't he buy a new case? I shall have to keep this locked."

When he came down again, having changed into a blue serge suit, Nell was in the drawing-room, arranging some flowers, and she looked up with a smile of recognition at his altered appearance.

"Your box has arrived, I see," she said, with the frankness of—well, Shorne Mills. "You must be glad. And where has Dick dashed off to? He nearly knocked me down in his hurry."

"To Shallop," he said. "I had a couple of horses sent down."

"But you couldn't ride, with your arm in a sling; and you've a horse here already."

"Don't suppose it's fit to ride yet," he said, "and I'm not going to carry a sling forever. Besides, they were eating their heads off—where they were."

He said nothing about the sidesaddle.

"I see. Well, I'm sorry Dick's gone this morning, for I wanted him to come out in the boat. It's a good day for mackerel." She looked wistfully at the sea shining below them. "Of course I could go by myself, but I promised Mr. Gadsby that I wouldn't."

"Who's Mr. Gadsby?"

"The vicar. I got caught in a squall off the Head one day, and—I really wasn't in the least danger—but they were all waiting for me at the jetty, and they made a fuss—and so I had to promise that I wouldn't go out alone. And old Brownie's out with his nets—he goes with me sometimes. It's a nuisance."

He stood by the window silently for a moment, then he glanced at her wistful face, and said:

"I should be a poor substitute, in my present condition, for old Brownie, or old anybody else; but if you'll allow me to go with you, I shall be very grateful. I can manage the tiller, at any rate."

Nell's face lit up; she wanted to go very badly; it was a "real" mackerel day, and, like the days of other fishing, not to be missed.

"Will you? That's awfully kind of you! Not that I want any help; it isn't that, for I can manage the Annie Laurie in half a gale; but there's a feeling that, because I'm only a girl, I'm not to be trusted alone."

"I quite understand," he said. "I'll promise not to interfere, if you'll let me come."

"And it may do you good—it's sure to!" she said eagerly. "There's the loveliest of breezes—you must have some wind for mackerel—and——Can you go at once?"

"This very minute. I'm all ready," he said.

"All right," she exclaimed, just as Dick might have done. "I'll be ready before you can say Jack Robinson!"

She ran out of the room and was down again in a very few minutes. Vernon glanced at her as they left the cottage and descended the steep road. She had put on a short skirt of rough serge, with a jersey, which accentuated every flowing line of her girlish, graceful figure, and the dark hair rippled under a red tam-o'-shanter. He was familiar enough with the yachting costumes of fashion, but he thought that he had never seen anything so workmanlike and becoming as this get-up which Nell had donned so quickly and carelessly. As they walked down the steps which led to the jetty, Nell exchanging greetings at every step, an old fisherman, crippled with rheumatism, limped beside them, and helped to bring the boat to the jetty steps.

Nell eyed the Annie Laurie lovingly, but said apologetically:

"She's a very good boat. Old, of course. She is a herring boat, and though she isn't fascinatingly beautiful, she can sail. Dick—helped by Brownie—decked her over, and Dick picked up a new set of sails last year from a man who was selling off his gear. Have you put in the bait and the lines, Willy?"

"Aye, aye, Miss Nell; I'm thinkin' you'll be gettin' some mackerel if the wind holds. Let me help 'ee wi' the sail."

"No, no," said Nell, "I can manage. Oh, please don't you trouble!" she added to Vernon. "If you'll give me the sheet—that's the rope by your hand."

Vernon nodded, and suppressed a smile.

"She'll go a bit tauter still, I think," he said, as Nell hoisted the mainsail.

She looked at him.

"You understand?" she said, with a little surprise.

Vernon thought of his crack yacht, but answered casually:

"I've done some yachting—yes."

"Yachting!" said Nell. "This isn't yachting. You must feel a kind of contempt for our poor old tub."

"Not at all; she's a good boat, I can see," he said.

Nell took up the oars, but she had to pull only a few strokes, for the wind soon filled the sail, and the Annie Laurie, as if piqued by the things that had been said of her, sprang forward before the wind.

Nell shipped the oars, looked up at the sail, and glanced at Vernon, who had taken his seat in the stern, and got hold of the tiller with an accustomed air.

"Make for the Head," she said. "I'll get the lines ready."

There was silence for a minute or two while she baited the lines and paid them out, and Vernon watched her with a kind of absent-minded interest.

She was quite intent on her work, and he felt that, so far as she was concerned, he might have been old Brownie, or the rheumatic Willy, or her brother Dick; and something in her girlish indifference to his presence and personality impressed him; for Drake, Viscount Selbie, was not accustomed to be passed over as a nonentity by the women in whose company he chanced to be.

"That ought to fetch them," she said, eying the baited line with an air of satisfaction. "You might keep her to the wind a little more, Mr. Vernon; she can carry all we've got, and more."

"Aye, aye!" he responded, in sailor fashion. "You only did her bare justice, Miss Lorton," he added. "She's a good boat."

Nell looked round at him with a gratified smile.

"She's a dear old thing, really," she said; "and she behaves like an angel in a gale. Many's the time Dick and I have sailed her when half the other boats were afraid to leave the harbor."

"Wasn't that rather dangerous, a tempting of Providence?" he said, rather gravely, at the thought of the peril incurred by these two thoughtless children—for what else were they?

"Oh, I don't know," she replied carelessly. "We know every inch of the coast and every current, and if it should ever come on too stiff, we should make for the open. It would have to be a bad sea to sink the Annie Laurie; and if we came to grief——Well, we can die but once, you know; and, after all, there are meaner ways of slipping off the mortal coil than doing it in a hurricane off Windy Head. There's the first fish! If Brownie were here, we should 'wet it'; but I haven't any whisky to offer you."

Her low but clear laugh rang musical over the billowing water, and she nodded at her companion as if he were one of the fishing men or Dick.

Vernon leaned back and gazed in turn at the sea and the sky and the slim, girlish form and beautiful face, and half unconsciously his mind concentrated itself upon her.

She was not the first young girl he had known, but she was quite unlike any young girl he had hitherto met. He could recall none so free and frank and utterly unselfconscious.

Most young girls with whom he had become acquainted had bored him by their insipidity or disgusted him by their precocity; but from this one there emanated a kind of charm which rested while it attracted him. It was pleasant to lean back and look at and listen to her; to watch the soft tendrils of dark hair stirred by the wind, to see the frank smile light up the gray eyes and curve the sweet red lips; to listen to the musical voice, the low brief laugh, which was so distinct from the ordinary girl's giggle or forced and affected gayety.

The fish were biting, and soon a pile of silver lay wet and glittering in the bottom of the boat.

"Haven't you got enough?" asked Vernon, with your sportsman's dislike of "pot hunting."

"For ourselves? Oh, yes; but some of the old people of the Mills like mackerel," replied Nell, "and they'll be waiting on the jetty for the Annie Laurie's return. Are you getting tired?" she asked, for the first time directing her attention to him. "I quite forgot you were an invalid."

"Go on forgetting it, please," he said. "In fact, the invalid business is played out. I'm far too hungry to keep up the character."

She laughed.

"So am I."

She raised herself on her elbow and looked toward the shore.

"If you'll take her to that cove just opposite us, we'll have some lunch. You can eat fish, I hope? It was awfully stupid of me not to remember——"

"I can eat anything," he said quickly. "I was just going to propose that we should cast lots, in cannibalistic fashion, to decide who should lunch on the other."

She laughed, and pulled in her line.

"That's a beauty for the last. Do you know how to cook mackerel?"

"No; but I can learn."

"Very well, then; you'll find a spirit lamp and stove in that locker under the tiller. Yes, that's it. And there ought to be some bread and butter, and some coffee. Milk, as we don't carry a cow, we shall have to do without. We shall be in smooth water presently, and then we can lunch."

He sailed the boat into a sheltered cove, and, rather awkwardly, with his one hand, extracted the cooking utensils from the locker. Nell lowered the sail, dropped the anchor, and came aft.

"I'm afraid I shall have to cook," she said. "Dick generally does it, but you've only one hand. There's one fish;" as she cut it open skillfully. "How many can you eat?"

"Two—three dozen," he said gravely.

She laughed, and placed three of the silver mackerel in the frying pan.

"Now don't, please, don't say that you haven't a match!" she said, half aghast with dread.

He took his silver match box from his pocket, and was on the point of handing it to her. Then he remembered the coronet engraved on it, and holding it against his side, managed to strike a light and ignite the spirit.

"Of course, you have to pretend that you don't mind the smell of cooking fish; but it really isn't so bad when one is hungry," she said, as the pan began to hiss and the fish to brown.

"There's salt and pepper somewhere," she remarked. "You put them on while the fish is cooking; it is half the battle, as Dick says. They're in the back of the locker, I think. If you'll move just a little——"

He screwed himself into as small a compass as possible, and she dived into the locker and got out a couple of tin boxes.

"And here's the bread—rather stale, I'm afraid—and some biscuits. The coffee's in that tin, and the water in this jar. Do you know how to make coffee?"

"Rather!" he said, with mock indignation. "I've made coffee under various circumstances and in various climes; in the galley of a Porto Rico coaster; in an American ravine, waiting for the game; on a Highland moor, when the stags had got scent and the last chance of sport in the day was gone like a beautiful dream; in an artist's attic in Florence, where the tobacco smoke was too thick to cut with anything less than a hatchet; and after a skirmish with the dervishes, when a cup of coffee seemed almost as precious as the life one had just managed to save by the skin of one's teeth; but I never made it under more pleasant circumstances than these."

He looked up and round him as he spoke, with a brighter expression on his face than she had as yet seen, and Nell regarded him with a sudden interest.

"How much you have traveled!" she said—"that mackerel wants turning; raise the pan so that the butter can run under the fish; that's it—and how much you must have seen! Italy, Egypt, Porto Rico—where is that? Oh, I remember! How delightful to have seen so much! You must be a very fortunate individual!"

She leaned her chin in her brown, shapely hands, and looked at him curiously, and with a frank envy in her gray eyes.

His face clouded for a moment.

"Count no man fortunate until he is dead!" he said, adapting the aphorism. "Believe me that I'd change places with you at this moment, and throw in all my experiences."

She laughed incredulously.

"With me? Oh, you can't mean it. It is very flattering, of course; but it's absurd. Why"—she paused and sighed—"I've never been anywhere, or seen anything. I've never been to London even, since I was quite a little girl, and——Change places with me!" She laughed again, just a little sadly. "Yes, it does sound absurd. For one thing, you wouldn't like to be poor; and we are poor, you know."

"Poor and content is rich enough," he remarked sententiously. Then he laughed. "I'm as good as a copy book with moral headings this morning."

Nell smiled.

"I think that is nonsense, like most copy-book headings. And yet——Yes, I should be content enough if it were not for Dick. After all, one can be happy though one is poor, especially if one lives in a beautiful place like Shorne Mills, and has a boat to sail in the summer, and books in the winter, and knows all the people round, and——"

"And happens to be young and full of the joy of life," he said, with a smile. "And it's only on your mind!"

She nodded gravely.

"Yes, of course I know that it's not right that he should be hanging about the Mills, doing nothing, and wasting his time. I'm always worrying about Dick's future. It's a sin that he should be wasted, for Dick is clever. You may not think so——"

"Oh, yes, I do," he said thoughtfully. "But I wouldn't worry. Something may turn up——"

She laughed.

"That is what he is always saying; but he says it rather bitterly sometimes, and——But I ought not to worry you, at any rate. Those fish are just done."

"Then my life is just saved," he responded solemnly.

"There are two plates; you hold them on the top of the stove to warm—that's it! And now you fill the kettle—oh! I see you've thought of that. It will boil while we eat the fish."

She helped him to some, and they ate in silence for some minutes. Only they who have eaten mackerel within a few minutes of their being caught, and eaten them while reclining in a boat, with a blue sky overhead and a sapphire sea all around, can know how good mackerel can taste. To Vernon, who possessed the appetite of the convalescent, the meal was an Olympian feast.

"No more?" he said, as Nell declined. "Pray don't say so, or I shall, from sheer decency, have to refuse also; and I could eat another half, and will do so if you will take the other. You wouldn't be so heartless as to deprive me of a second serve, surely!"

Nell laughed and held out her plate.

"I consent because I do not think the recently starving should eat too much at first. Didn't you say that you had been in Egypt fighting? You are in the army, then?"

He nodded casually, and she looked at him thoughtfully.

"Then we ought not to call you 'Mr.,'" she said. "What are you—a colonel?"

He laughed shortly as he picked the fish from the bones.

"Good heavens! do I look so old? No, not colonel. I'm a captain. But I'm not in the army now. I left it—worse luck!"

"Why did you leave it?" she asked.

He looked a little bored—not so much bored, perhaps, as reluctant.

"Oh, for a variety of reasons; the most important being the fact that a relative of mine wished me to do so."

His face clouded for a moment or two; then he said, with the air of one dismissing an unpleasant topic:

"This water's boiling like mad. Now is my time to prove my assertion that I am capable of making coffee. I want two jugs, or this jug and the tin will do. The coffee? Thanks. I'm afraid I'll have to get you to hold the tin. This is the native method: You make it in the tin—so; then, after a moment or two, you pour the liquid—not the coffee grounds—into the jug, then back, and then back again, and lo! you have cafÉ À la FranÇais, or Cairo, or Clapham fashion."

"It's very good," she admitted, when it had cooled sufficiently for her to taste it. "And that is how you made it on the battlefield?"

"Scarcely," he said. "There was no jug, only an empty meat can; and the water—well, the water was almost as thick, with mud, before the coffee was put in as afterward, and the men would scarcely have had patience to wait for the patent process. Poor beggars! Some of them had not had a drop past their lips for twenty-four hours—and been fighting, too."

Nell listened, with her grave gray eyes fixed on his face.

"How sorry you must have been to leave the army!" she said thoughtfully.

"Does warfare seem so alluring?" he retorted, with a laugh. "But you're right; I was sorry to send in my papers, and I've been sorrier since the day I did it."

Nell curled herself up in the bottom of the boat like a well-fed and contented cat, and Vernon, having washed the plates by the simple process of dragging them backward and forward through the water, stretched himself and felt in his pockets. He relinquished the search with a sigh of resignation, and Nell, hearing it, looked up.

"Are you not going to smoke?" she asked. "Dick would have his pipe alight long before this; and, of course, I don't mind—if that is what you were waiting for. Why should I?"

"Thanks; but, like an idiot, I've forgotten my pipe. I've got some tobacco and cigarette paper."

"Then you are all right," she remarked.

"Scarcely," he said carelessly. "This stupid mummy of an arm of mine prevents me rolling a cigarette, you see."

"How stupid of me to forget that!" she said. "Give me the tobacco and the paper and let me try."

He produced the necessary articles promptly; and showed her how to do it.

"Not quite so much tobacco"—she had taken out enough for ten cigarettes, and spilled sufficient for another five—"and—er—if you could get it more equal along the paper. Like this—ah, thanks!"

In showing her, his fingers got "mixed" with hers, but Nell seemed too absorbed in her novel experiment to notice the fact.

"Like that? Rather like a miniature sausage, isn't it? And it will all come undone when I let go of it," she added apprehensively.

"If you'll be so good as just to wet the edge with your lips," he said, in a matter-of-fact way.

She looked at him, and a faint dash of color came into her face.

"You won't like to smoke it afterward," she said coolly.

He stared at her, then smiled.

"Try me!" he said succinctly.

She gave a little shrug of the shoulders, moistened the cigarette in the usual way, and handed it to him gravely.

"I'll try to make the next better," she said. "I suppose you will want another?"

"I'm afraid I shall want more than you will be inclined to make," he said, "and I shouldn't like to trespass on your good nature."

"Oh, it's not very hard work making cigarettes," she said. "I'd better set about the next at once. How is that?" and she held up the production for inspection.

"Simply perfect," he said. "You would amass a fortune out in the East as a cigarette maker."

She looked up at him, beyond him, wistfully.

"I wish I could amass a fortune; indeed, I'd be content if I could earn my living any way," she said, as if she were communing with herself rather than addressing him. "If I could earn some money, and help Dick!"

Her voice died away, and she sighed softly.

He regarded her dreamily.

"Don't think of anything so—unnatural," he said.

She raised her eyes, and looked at him with surprise.

"Is it unnatural for a woman—a girl—to earn her own living?" she said.

"Yes," he said emphatically. "Women were made for men to work for, not to toil themselves."

Nell laughed, in simple mockery of the sentiment.

"What nonsense! As if we were dolls or something to be wrapped up in lavender! Why, half the women in Shorne Mills work! You see them driving their donkeys down to the beach for sand—haven't you seen them with bags on each side?—and doing washing, and making butter and going to market. Why, I should have to work if anything happened to mamma. At least, she has often said so. She has—what is it?—oh, an annuity or something of the kind; and if she died, Dick and I would have to 'face the world,' as she puts it."

He said nothing, but looked at her through the thin blue cloud of his cigarette. She looked so sweet, so girlish, so—yes, so helpless—lying there in the sunlight, one brown paw supporting her shapely head, the other—after the manner of girls—dabbling in the water. A pang of compassion smote him.

"It's a devil of a world," he muttered, almost to himself.

"Do you think so?" she said, with surprise. "I don't. At any rate, I don't think so this afternoon."

"Why this afternoon?" he asked, half curiously.

"Oh, I don't know. Perhaps it's the sunshine, or—or—do you think it's the mackerel?"

She laughed.

"But I feel so happy and free from care. And yet all the old trouble remains. There's Dick's future—and—oh, all the rest. But this afternoon everything seems bright and hopeful. I wonder why?"

She looked at him wistfully, as if he might perhaps explain; but Vernon said nothing.

"Have you really finished that cigarette? You smoke much less quickly than Dick. Well, there's another ready; and when you've finished that, I think we ought to be getting back. I want—let me see—yes, ten more fish, and I can get them when we get farther out."

They set the sail, and the Annie Laurie glided out of the placid little cove into the open sea.

As Vernon steered for the Head, behind which Shorne Mills sheltered, he sighed unconsciously. He, too, had been happy and free from care that morning, and the afternoon seemed full of indescribable peace and happiness. He, like Nell, wondered why. A day or two ago—or was it a month, a year?—he had been depressed and low-spirited, and firmly convinced that life was not worth living; but this afternoon——

What a pretty picture she made in her jersey, that fitted her like a skin, with the soft black hair rippling beneath the edge of the tam-o'-shanter!

Suddenly the pretty picture called out, "Sail ahead, sir!" and Vernon, taking his eyes from her, saw a yacht skimming along the sapphire waves, almost parallel with the Annie Laurie.

"That's a yacht," said Nell; "and a fine one, too."

He looked at it, shading his eyes with his practicable hand.

"I wonder who she is?" said Nell. "There's a field glass in the locker—get it. Can you see her name?"

He put the glass to his eyes and adjusted it; and, as he got the focus, an exclamation escaped him.

"What did you say?" inquired Nell.

"Nothing, only that she's a fine vessel," he said indifferently.

"Yes. I should like to be on her," said Nell. "Wouldn't you?"

He smiled grimly.

"I am content with the Annie Laurie," he replied.

She stared at him incredulously, then laughed.

"Thank you for the compliment; but you can't seriously prefer this dear old tub to that! I wonder whom she belongs to? How fast she travels. I should like to have a yacht like that."

"Would you?" he said, eying her rather strangely. "Perhaps some day——"

He stopped, and knocked the ash from his cigarette.

Nell laughed.

"Were you going to say that perhaps some day I should own one like her? What nonsense! It is like the things one reads in books, when the benevolent and wise old gentleman tells the boy that perhaps, if he works hard, and is honest and persevering, he may own a carriage and a pair like that which happens to be passing at the moment."

Vernon laughed.

"Life is full of possibilities," he said, with his eyes fixed on the yacht, which, after sailing broadside to them for some time, suddenly put down the helm and struck out for sea.

"I thought they might be making for Shorne Mills," said Nell, rather regretfully. "Yachts put in there sometimes, and I should have liked to have seen this one."

"Would you?" he said, as curiously as he had spoken before.

"It doesn't matter whether I would or wouldn't; she's gone out into the channel now," said Nell.

He stifled a sigh which sounded like a sigh of relief, and steered the Annie Laurie for home.

Nell swept the fish into an old reed basket which had held many such a catch, and held it up to the admiring and anticipatory gaze of a small crowd of women and children which had gathered on the jetty steps at the approach of the Annie Laurie.

As she stepped on shore and distributed the fish, receiving the short but expressive Devonshire "Thank 'ee, Miss Nell, thank 'ee," Vernon looked at the beautiful girlish face pensively, and thought—well, who can tell what a man thinks at such moments? Perhaps he was thinking of the hundred and one useless women of his class who, throughout the whole of their butterfly lives, had never won a single breath of gratitude from the poor in their midst.

"Come along," she said, turning to him, when she had emptied the basket. "I'm afraid we're in for a scolding. I quite forgot till this moment that mamma did not know you had gone out."

"What about you?" he said, remembering for the first time that he had spent so many hours with this girl alone and unchaperoned.

Nell laughed.

"Oh, she would not be anxious about me. Mamma is used to my going out for a ride—when I can borrow a horse from some one—or sailing the Annie Laurie with old Brownie; but she'll be anxious about you. You're an invalid, you know."

"Not much of the invalid about me, saving this arm," he said.

As they climbed the hill, they came upon Dick mounted upon a horse the like of which Nell had never seen; and she stopped dead short and stared at him.

"Hallo, Nell! Hallo, Mr. Vernon! Just giving him a run, after being shut up in that stuffy railway box."

"That's right," said Vernon. "Like him?"

"Like him?" responded Dick, with the superlative of approval; "never rode a horse to equal him, and the other is as good. And"—in an undertone—"the sidesaddle has come."

But Nell, whose ears were sharp, heard him.

"Who is the sidesaddle for?" she asked, innocently and ungrammatically.

Vernon took the bull by the horns.

"For you, if you will deign to use it, Miss Nell," he said.

It was the first time he had addressed her as "Miss Nell," but she did not notice it.

"For me?" she exclaimed.

They were opposite Sandy's stables, and Dick dropped off his horse and brought out the other.

"Look at her, Nell!" he exclaimed, with bated breath. "Perfect, isn't she?"

Nell looked at her with a flush that came and went.

"Oh, but I—I—could not!" she breathed.

Mr. Drake Vernon laughed.

"Why not?" he said argumentatively. "Fair play's a jewel. You can't expect to have all the innings your side, Miss Nell. You've treated me—well, like a prince; and you won't refuse to ride a horse of mine that's simply spoiling for want of exercise!"

Nell looked from him to the horse, and from the horse to him.

"I—I—am so surprised," she faltered. "I—I will ask mamma."

"That's all right," said Vernon, who had learned to know "mamma" by this time.

Nell left Dick and Vernon standing round the horses in man fashion. Dick was all aglow with satisfaction and admiration.

"Never saw a better pair than these, Mr. Vernon," he said. "I should think this one could jump."

She had just won a military steeplechase, and Vernon nodded assent.

"You must persuade your sister to ride her," he said.

As he spoke, he seated himself on the edge of the steep roadway which led to the jetty.

"Take the horses in," he said. "I'll come up in a few minutes."

But the minutes ran into hours. He looked out to sea with a meditative and retrospective mind. He was going over the past which seemed so far away, so vague, since he had gone sailing in the Annie Laurie this morning.

Then suddenly the past became the present. There was a stir on the jetty below him. Voices—the voice of fashionable people, the voices of "society"—rose in an indistinguishable sound to his ears. He moved uneasily, and refilled and lit the pipe that he had borrowed of Dick. He heard the footsteps of several persons climbing the steep stairs. One seemed familiar to him. He pulled at his pipe, and crossed his legs with an air of preparation, of resignation.

The voices came nearer, and presently one said:

"I certainly, for one, decline to go any farther. I think it is too absurd to expect one to climb these ridiculous steps. And there is nothing to see up there, is there?"

At the sound of the voice, clear and bell-like, yet languid, with the languor of the fashionable woman, Mr. Drake Vernon bit his lips and colored. He half rose, but sank down again, as if uncertain whether to meet her, or to remain where he was; eventually he crossed his legs again, rammed down his pipe, and waited.

"Oh, but you'll come up to the top, Lady Lucille!" remonstrated a man's voice, the half-nasal drawl of the man about town—the ordinary club lounger. "There's a view, don't you know—there really is!"

"I don't care for views. Not another step, Archie. I'll wait here till you come back. You can describe the view—or, rather, you can't, thank Heaven!"

As she spoke, she mounted a few steps, and turned into the small square which offered a resting place on the steep ascent, and so came full upon Mr. Vernon.

He rose and raised his hat, and she looked at him, at first with the vagueness of sheer amazement, then with a start of recognition, and with her fair face all crimson for one instant, and, the next, pale, she said, in a suppressed voice, as if she were afraid of being overheard:

"Drake!"

He looked at her with a curious smile, as if something in the tone of her voice, in her sudden pallor following upon her; blush, were significant, and had told himself something.

"Well, Luce," he said; "and what brings you here?"