Jutting out from the rocky coast, a sand spit nearly seven miles long, Minnesota Point is as a strong arm stretched forth to defend the harbour of Duluth against the storms which breed in the frozen North and come roaring down Lake Superior. Wisconsin Point, less than half its length, almost meets it from the other shore. Between the two is the narrow inlet through which in old times came the Canadian voyageurs—on their way across Saint Louis Bay and up the windings of the Saint Louis River to Pond du Lac, twenty miles farther westward. That was in the fur-trading days of little sailing-vessels and birch-bark canoes. Now, close to its shoulder, the Point is cut by a canal through which the great black steamships come and go.

Five-and-twenty years ago—before the canal was thought of, and when the Duluth of the present, with its backing of twenty thousand miles of railway, was a dream just beginning to be realized—Minnesota Point was believed to have a great future. Close to its shoulder a town site was staked out, and little wooden houses were built at a great rate. Corner lots on that sand spit were at a premium. The "boom" was on. The smash of '73 knocked the bottom out of everything for a while. When good times came again the town site moved on westward a half-mile or so and settled itself on the mainland. The little houses on the Point were out of the running and were taken up by Swedes—who were content, as Americans were not, to live a few steps away from the strenuous centre of that inchoate metropolis. That time the "boom" was a genuine one. The new city had come to stay. In course of time, to meet its growing trade requirements, the canal was cut which made the Point an island—and after that the Point was dead for good and all.

Nowadays it is only in summer that a little life, other than that of its few inhabitants, shows itself on Minnesota Point—when camping-parties and picnic-parties go down by three miles of shaky tramway to Oatka Beach. During all the rest of the year that sandy barren, with its forlorn decaying houses and its dreary growth of pines stunted by the harsh lake winds, is forgotten and desolate. Now and then is heard the cry of a gull flying across it slowly; and always against its outer side—with a thunderous crash in times of storm, in times of calm with a sad soft lap-lapping—surge or ripple the deathly cold waters of Lake Superior: waters so cold that whoever drowns in them sinks quickly—not to rise again (as the drowned do usually), but for all time, in chill companionship with the countless dead gathered there through the ages, to be lost and hidden in those icy depths.

The ghastly coldness of the water in which it is merged seems to have numbed the Point and reconciled it to its bleak destiny. It has accepted its fate: recognizing with a grim indifference that its once glowing future has vanished irrevocably into what now is the hopelessness of its nearly forgotten past.

George Maltham, wandering out on the Point one Sunday morning in the early spring-time—he had just come up from Chicago to take charge of the Duluth end of his father's line of lake steamers and was lonely in that strange place, and was the more disposed to be misanthropic because he had a headache left over from the previous wet night at the club—came promptly to the conclusion that he never had struck a place so god-forsakenly dismal. Aside from his own feelings, there was even more than usual to justify this opinion. The day was grey and chill. A strong northeast wind was blowing that covered the lake with white-caps and that sent a heavy surf rolling shoreward. A little ice, left from the spring break-up, still was floating in the harbour. Under these conditions the Point was at its cheerless worst.

Maltham had crossed the canal by the row-boat ferry. Having mounted the sodden steps and looked about him for a moment—in which time his conclusion was reached as to the Point's god-forsaken dismalness—he was for abandoning his intended explorations and going straight-away back to the mainland. But when he turned to descend the steps the boat had received some waiting passengers—three church-bound Swedish women in their Sunday clothes—and had just pushed off. That little turn of chance decided him. After all, he said to himself, it did not make much difference. What he wanted was a walk to rid him of his headache; and the Point offered him, as the rocky hill-sides of the mainland conspicuously did not, a good long stretch of level land.

Before him extended an absurdly wide street—laid out in magnificent expectation of the traffic that never came to it—flanked in far-reaching perspective by the little houses which sprang up in such a hurry when the "boom" was on. In its centre was the tramway, its road-bed laid with wooden planks. The dingy open tram-car, in which the church-bound Swedish women had come up to the ferry, started away creakingly while he stood watching it. That was the only sight or sound of life. For some little time, in the stillness, he could hear the driver addressing Swedish remarks of an encouraging or abusive nature to his mule.

Taking the planked tramway in preference to the rotten wooden sidewalks full of pitfalls, Maltham walked on briskly for a mile or so—his headache leaving him in the keen air—until the last of the little houses was passed. There the vast street suddenly dribbled off into a straggling sandy road, which wound through thickets of bushy white birch and a sparse growth of stunted pines. The tramway, along which he continued, went on through the brush in a straight line. The Point had narrowed to a couple of hundred yards. Through rifts in the tangle about him he could see heaps of storm-piled drift-wood scattered along the lake-side beach—on which the surf was pounding heavily. On the harbour side the beach was broken by inthrusts of sedgy swamp. Presently he came to a sandy open space in which, beside a weather-worn little wooden church, was a neglected graveyard that seemed to give the last touch of dreariness to that dismal solitude.

The graveyard was a waste of sand, save where bushy patches of birch had sprung up in it from wind-borne seeds. Swept by many storms, the sandy mounds were disappearing. Still marking the graves were a few shabby wooden crosses and a dozen or so of slanting or fallen wooden slabs. Once these short-lived monuments had been painted white and had borne legends in black lettering. But only a Swedish word or a Swedish name remained here and there legible—for the sun and the wind and the rain had been doing their erasing work steadily for years. One slab alone stood nearly upright and retained a few partly decipherable lines in English. But even on that Maltham could make out only the scattered words: "Sacred.... Ulrica.... Royal House of Sweden ... ever beloved ... of Major Calhoun Ashley," and a date that seemed to be 1879.

His headache had gone, but it had left him heavy and dejected. That fragmentary epitaph increased his sombreness. Even had he been in a cheerful mood he could not have failed to perceive the pathetic irony of it all. There was more than the ordinary cruelty of death and forgetfulness, he thought, about that grave so desolate of one who had been connected—it did not matter how—with a "royal house," and who was described in those almost illegible lines as "ever beloved." That was human nature down to the hard pan, he thought; and with a half-smile and a half-sigh over the fate of that poor dead Ulrica he turned away from the graveyard and walked on. Half-whimsically he wondered if he had reached the climax of the melancholy which brooded over that dreary sand spit. As he stated the case to himself, short of finding a man lying murdered among the birch-bushes it was not likely that he would strike anything able to raise that graveyard's hand!

The murdered man did not materialize, and the next out-of-the-way sight that he came across—when he had walked on past the dingy and forgotten-looking little church—was a big ramshackling wooden house of such pretentious absurdity that his first glimpse of it fairly made him laugh. Its square centre was a wooden tower of three stories, battlemented, flanked by two battlemented wings. A veranda ran along the lower floor, and above the veranda was a gallery. Some of the windows were boarded over; others had scraps of carpet stuck into their glassless gaps—and all had Venetian shutters (singularly at odds with the climate of that region) hanging dubiously and with many broken slats. The paint had weathered away, and bricks had fallen from the chimney-tops—a loss which gave to the queer structure, in conjunction with lapses in its wooden battlements, a sadly broken-crested air. As a whole, it suggested a badly done caricature of an old-fashioned Southern homestead—of which the essence of the caricature was finding it in that bleak Northern land.

Maltham had come to a full stop in front of this absurd dwelling, which was set a little back from the road in a dishevelled enclosure, and as he stood examining in an amused way its various eccentricities he became aware that from one of the lower windows a man was watching him.

This was disconcerting, and he turned to walk on. But before he had gone a dozen steps the front door opened and the man came outside. He was dressed in shabby grey clothes with a certain suggestion of a military cut about them; but in spite of his shabbiness he had the look of a gentleman. He was sixty, or thereabouts, and seemed to have been well set up when he was younger—before the slouch had settled on his shoulders and before he had taken on a good many unnecessary inches about his waist. From where he stood on the veranda he hailed Maltham cordially:

"Won't yo' come in, suh? I have obsehved youah smiles at my old house heah— No, no, yo' owe me no apology, suh," he went on quickly, as Maltham attempted a confused disclaimer. "Yo' ah quite justified in laughing, suh, at my foolish fancy—that went wrong mainly because the Yankee ca'pentah whom I employed to realize it was a hopelessly damned fool. But it was a creditable sentiment, suh, which led me to desiah to reproduce heah in godfo'saken Minnesotah my ancestral home in the grand old State of South Cahrolina—the house that my grandfatheh built theah and named Eutaw Castle, as I have named its pore successeh, because of the honorable paht he bo' in the battle of Eutaw Springs. The result, I admit, is a thing to laugh at, suh—but not the ideah. No, suh, not the ideah! But come in, suh, come in! The exterioh of Eutaw Castle may be a failuah; but within it, suh, yo' will find in this cold No'th'en region the genuine wahm hospitality of a true Southe'n home!"

Maltham perceived that the only apology which he could offer for laughing at this absurd house—the absurdity of which became rather pathetic, he thought, in view of its genesis—was to accept its owner's invitation to enter it. Acting on this conclusion, he turned into the enclosure—the gate, hanging loosely on a single hinge, was standing open—and mounted the veranda steps.

As he reached the top step his host advanced and shook hands with him warmly. "Yo'ah vehy welcome, suh," he said; and added, after putting his hand to a pocket in search of something that evidently was not there: "Ah, I find that I have not my cahd-case about me. Yo' must pehmit me to introduce myself: Majoh Calhoun Ashley, of the Confedehrate sehvice, suh—and vehy much at youahs."

Maltham started a little as he heard this name, and the small shock so far threw him off his balance that as he handed his card to the Major he said: "Then it was your name that I saw just now in—" And stopped short, inwardly cursing himself for his awkwardness.

"That yo' saw in the little graveyahd, on the tomb of my eveh-beloved wife, suh," the Major replied—with a quaver in his voice which compelled Maltham mentally to reverse his recent generalizations. The Major was silent for a moment, and then continued: "Heh grave is not yet mahked fitly, suh, as no doubt yo' obsehved. Cihcumstances oveh which I have had no control have prevented me from erecting as yet a suitable monument oveh heh sacred remains. She was my queen, suh"—his voice broke again—"and of a line of queens: a descendant, suh, from a collateral branch of the ancient royal house of Sweden. I am hoping, I am hoping, suh, that I shall be able soon to erect oveh heh last resting-place a monument wo'thy of heh noble lineage and of hehself. I am hoping, suh, to do that vehy soon."

The Major again was silent for a moment; and then, pulling himself together, he looked at Maltham's card—holding it a long way off from his eyes. "Youah name is familiar to me, suh," he said, "though fo' the moment I do not place it, and I am most happy to make youah acquaintance. But come in, suh, come in. I am fo'getting myself—keeping you standing this way outside of my own doah."

He took Maltham cordially by the arm and led him through the doorway into a wide bare hall; and thence into a big room on the right, that was very scantily furnished but that was made cheerful by a rousing drift-wood fire. Over the high mantel-piece was hung an officer's sword with its belt. On the buckle of the belt were the letters C. S. A. Excepting this rather pregnant bit of decoration, the whitewashed walls were bare.

The Major bustled with hospitality—pulling the bigger and more comfortable of two arm-chairs to the fire and seating Maltham in it, and then bringing out glasses and a bottle from a queer structure of unpainted white pine that stood at one end of the room and had the look of a sideboard gone wrong.

"At the moment, suh," he said apologetically, "my cellah is badly fuhnished and I am unable to offeh yo' wine. But if yo' have an appreciative taste fo' Bourbon," he went on with more assurance, "I am satisfied that yo' will find the ahticle in this bottle as sound as any that the noble State of Kentucky eveh has produced. Will yo' oblige me, suh, by saying when!"

Not knowing about the previous wet night, and its still lingering consequences, the promptness with which Maltham said "when" seemed to disconcert the Major a little—but not sufficiently to deter him from filling his own glass with a handsome liberality. Holding it at a level with his lips, he turned toward his guest with the obvious intention of drinking a toast.

"May I have a little water, please?" put in Maltham.

"I beg youah pahdon, suh. I humbly beg youah pahdon," the Major answered. "I am not accustomed to dilute my own liquoh, and I most thoughtlessly assumed that yo' would not desiah to dilute youahs. I trust that yo' will excuse my seeming rudeness, suh. Yo' shall have at once the bevehrage which yo' desiah."

While still apologizing, the Major placed his glass on the table and went to the door. Opening it he called: "Ulrica, my child, bring a pitcheh of fresh wateh right away."

Again Maltham gave a little start—as he had done when the Major had introduced himself. In a vague sub-conscious way he felt that there was something uncanny in thus finding living owners of names which he had seen, within that very hour, scarcely legible above an uncared-for grave. But the Major, talking on volubly, did not give him much opportunity for these psychological reflections; and presently there was the sound of footsteps in the hall outside, and then the door opened and the owner of the grave-name appeared.

Because of the odd channel in which his thoughts were running, Maltham had the still odder fancy for an instant that the young girl who entered the room was the dead Ulrica of whom the Major had spoken—"a queen, and of a line of queens." And even when this thought had passed—so quickly that it was gone before he had risen to his feet to greet her—the impression of her queenliness remained. For this living woman bearing a dead name might have been Aslauga herself: so tall and stately was she, and so fair with that cold beauty of the North of which the soul is fire. Instinctively he felt the fire, and knew that it still slumbered—and knew, too, that in the fulness of time, being awakened, it would glow with a consuming splendour in her dark eyes.

All this went in a flash through his mind before the Major said: "Pehmit me, Mr. Maltham, to present yo' to my daughteh, Miss Ulrica Ashley." And added: "Mr. Maltham was passing, Ulrica, and did me the honeh to accept my invitation to come in."

She put down the pitcher of water and gave Maltham her hand. "It was very kind of you, sir," she said gravely. "We do not have many visitors, and my father gets lonely with only me. It was very kind of you, sir, indeed." She spoke with a certain precision, and with a very slight accent—so slight that Maltham did not immediately notice it. What he did notice, with her first words, was the curiously thrilling quality of her low-pitched and very rich voice.

"And don't you get lonely too?" he asked.

"Why no," she answered with a little air of surprise. And speaking slowly, as though she were working the matter out in her mind, she added: "With me it is different, you see. I was born here on the Point and I love it. And then I have the house to look after. And I have my boat. And I can talk with the neighbours—though I do not often care to. Father cannot talk with them, because he does not know Swedish as I do. When he wants company he has to go all the way up to town. You see, it is not the same with us at all." And then, as though she had explained the matter sufficiently, she turned to the Major and asked: "Do you want anything more, father?"

"Nothing mo', my child—except that an extra place is to be set at table. Mr. Maltham will dine with us, of co'se."

At this Maltham protested a little; but presently yielded to Ulrica's, "You will be doing a real kindness to father if you will stay, Mr. Maltham," backed by the Major's peremptory: "Yo' ah my prisoneh, suh, and in Eutaw Castle we don't permit ouah prisonehs to stahve!" The matter being thus settled, Ulrica made a little formal bow and left the room.

"The wateh is at youah sehvice, suh," said the Major as the door closed behind her. "I beg that yo' will dilute youah liquoh to youah liking. Heah's to youah very good health, suh—and to ouah betteh acquaintance." He drank his whiskey appreciatively, and as he set down his empty glass continued: "May I ask, suh, if yo' ah living in Duluth, oh mehly passing through? I ventuah to ask because a resident of this town sca'cely would be likely to come down on the Point at this time of yeah."

"I began to be a resident only day before yesterday," Maltham answered. "I've come to take charge here of our steamers—the Sunrise Line."

"The Sunrise Line!" repeated the Major in a very eager tone. "The biggest transpo'tation line on the lakes. The line of which that great capitalist Mr. John L. Maltham is president. And to think, suh, that I did not recognize youah name!"

"John L. Maltham is my father," the young man said.

"Why, of co'se, of co'se! I might have had the sense to know that as soon as I looked at youah cahd. This is a most fo'tunate meeting, Mr. Maltham—most fo'tunate for both of us. I shall not on this occasion, when yo' ah my guest, enteh into a discussion of business mattehs. But at an eahly day I shall have the honeh to lay befo' yo' convincing reasons why youah tehminal docks should be established heah on the Point—which a beneficent Providence cleahly intended to be the shipping centeh of this metropolis—and prefehrably, suh, as the meahest glance at a chaht of the bay will demonstrate, heah on my land. Yo' will have the first choice of the wha'ves which I have projected; and I may even say, suh, that any altehrations which will affo'd mo' convenient accommodations to youah vessels still ah possible. Yes, suh, the matteh has not gone so fah but that any reasonable changes which yo' may desiah may yet be made."

Remembering the sedgy swamps beside which he had passed that morning, Maltham was satisfied that the Major's concluding statement was well within the bounds of truth. But he was not prepared to meet off-hand so radical a proposition, and while he was fumbling in his mind for some sort of non-committal answer the Major went on again.

"It is not fo' myself, suh," he said, "that I desiah to realize this magnificent undehtaking. Living heah costs little, and what I get from renting my land to camping pahties and fo' picnics gives me all I need. And I'm an old man, anyway, and whetheh I die rich oh pore don't matteh. It's fo' my daughteh's sake that I seek wealth, suh, not fo' my own. That deah child of mine is heh sainted motheh oveh again, Mr. Maltham—except that heh motheh's eyes weh blue. That is the only diffehrence. And beside heh looks she has identically the same sweet natuah, suh—the same exquisite goodness and beauty of haht. When my great loss came to me," the Major's voice broke badly, "it was my love fo' that deah child kept me alive. It breaks my haht, suh, to think of dying and leaving heh heah alone and pore."

Maltham had got to his bearings by this time and was able to frame a reasonably diplomatic reply. "Well, perhaps we'd better not go into the matter to-day," he said. "You see, our line has traffic agreements with the N. P. and the Northwestern that must hold for the present, anyway. And then I've only just taken charge, you know, and I must look around a little before I do anything at all. But I might write to my father to come up here when he can, and then he and you could have a talk."

The Major's look of eager cheerfulness faded at the beginning of this cooling rejoinder, but he brightened again at its end. "A talk with youah fatheh, suh," he answered, "would suit me down to the ground-flo'. An oppo'tunity to discuss this great matteh info'mally with a great capitalist has been what I've most desiahed fo' yeahs. But I beg youah pahdon, suh. I am fo'getting the sacred duties of hospitality. Pehmit me to fill youah glass."

It seemed to pain him that his guest refused this invitation; but, finding him obdurate, he kept the sacred duties of hospitality in working order by exercising them freely upon himself. "Heah's to the glorious futuah of Minnesotah Point, suh!" he said as he raised his glass—and it was obvious that he would be off again upon the exploitation of his hopelessly impossible project as soon as he put it down. Greatly to Maltham's relief, the door opened at that juncture and Ulrica entered to call them to dinner; and he was still more relieved, when they were seated at table, by finding that his host dropped business matters and left the glorious future of Minnesota Point hanging in the air.

At his own table, indeed, the Major was quite at his best. He told good stories of his army life, and of his adventurous wanderings which ended when he struck Duluth just at the beginning of its first "boom"; and very entertaining was what he had to tell of that metropolis in its embryotic days.

But good though the Major's stories were, Maltham found still more interesting the Major's daughter—who spoke but little, and who seemed to be quite lost at times in her own thoughts. As he sat slightly turned toward her father he could feel her eyes fixed upon him; and more than once, facing about suddenly, he met her look full. When this happened she was not disconcerted, nor did she immediately look away from him—and he found himself thrilled curiously by her deeply intent gaze. Yet the very frankness of it gave it a quality that was not precisely flattering. He had the feeling that she was studying him in much the same spirit that she would have studied some strange creature that she might have come across in her walks in the woods. When he tried to bring her into the talk he did not succeed; but this was mainly because the Major invariably cut in before he could get beyond a direct question and a direct reply. Only once—when her father made some reference to her love for sailing—was her reserve, which was not shyness, a little broken; and the few words that she spoke before the Major broke in again were spoken so very eagerly that Maltham resolved to bring her back to that subject when he could get the chance. Knowing something of the ways of women, he knew that to set her to talking about anything in which she was profoundly interested would lower her guard at all points—and so would enable him to come in touch with her thoughts. He wanted to get at her thoughts. He was sure that they were not of a commonplace kind.

V

When the dinner was ended he made a stroke for the chance that he wanted. "Will you show me your boat?" he asked. "I'm a bit of a sailor myself, and I should like to see her very much indeed."

"Oh, would you? I am so glad!" she answered eagerly. And then added more quietly: "It is a real pleasure to show you the Nixie. I am very fond of her and very proud of her. Father gave her to me three years ago—after he sold a lot over in West Superior. And it was very good of him, because he does not like sailing at all. Will you come now? It is only a step down to the wharf."

The Major declared that he must have his after-dinner pipe in comfort, and they went off without him—going out by a side door and across a half-acre of kitchen-garden, still in winter disorder, to the wharf on the bay-side where the Nixie was moored. She was a half-decked twenty-foot cat-boat, clean in her lines and with the look of being able to hold her own pretty well in a blow.

"Is she not beautiful?" Ulrica asked with great pride. And presently, when Maltham came to a pause in his praises, she added hesitatingly: "Would you—would you care to come out in her for a little while?"

"Indeed I would!" he answered instantly and earnestly.

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" Ulrica exclaimed. "I do want you to see how wonderfully she sails!"

The boat was moored with her stern close to the wharf and with her bow made fast to an outstanding stake. When they had boarded her Ulrica cast off the stern mooring, ran the boat out to the stake and made fast with a short hitch, and then—as the boat swung around slowly in the slack air under the land—set about hoisting the sail. She would not permit Maltham to help her. He sat aft, steadying the tiller, watching with delight her vigorous dexterity and her display of absolute strength. When she had sheeted home and made fast she cast off the bow mooring, and then stepped aft quickly and took the tiller from his hand. For a few moments they drifted slowly. Then the breeze, coming over the tree-tops, caught them and she leaned forward and dropped the centreboard and brought the boat on the wind. It was a leading wind, directly off the lake, that enabled them to make a single leg of it across the bay. As the boat heeled over Maltham shifted his seat to the weather side. This brought him a little in front of Ulrica, and below her as she stood to steer. From under the bows came a soft hissing and bubbling as the boat slid rapidly along.

"Is she not wonderful?" Ulrica asked with a glowing enthusiasm. "Just see how we are dropping that big sloop over yonder—and the Nixie not half her size! But the Nixie is well bred, you see, and the sloop is not. She is as heavy all over as the Nixie is clean and fine. Father says that breeding is everything—in boats and in horses and in men. He says that a gentleman is the finest thing that God ever created. It was because the Southerners all were gentlemen that they whipped the Yankees, you know."

"But they didn't—the Yankees whipped them."

"Only in the last few battles, father says—and those did not count, so far as the principle is concerned," Ulrica answered conclusively.

Maltham did not see his way to replying to this presentation of the matter and was silent. Presently she went on, with a slight air of apology: "I hope you did not mind my looking at you so much while we were at dinner, Mr. Maltham. You see, except father, you are the only gentleman I ever have had a chance to look at close, that way, in my whole life. Father will not have much to do with the people living up in town. Most of them are Yankees, and he does not like them. None of them ever come to see us. The only people I ever talk with are our neighbours; and they are just common people, you know—though some of them are as good as they can be. And as father always is talking about what a gentleman ought to be or ought not to be it is very interesting really to meet one. That was the reason why I stared at you so. I hope you did not mind."

"I'm glad I interested you, even if it was only as a specimen of a class," Maltham answered. "I hope that you found me a good specimen." Her simplicity was so refreshing that he sought by a leading question to induce a farther exhibition of it. "What is your ideal of a gentleman?" he asked.

"Oh, just the ordinary one," she replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "A gentleman must be absolutely brave, and must kill any man who insults him—or, at least, must hurt him badly. He must be absolutely honest—though he is not bound, of course, to tell all that he knows when he is selling a horse. He must be absolutely true to the woman he loves, and must never deceive her in any way. He must not refuse to drink with another gentleman unless he is willing to fight him. He must protect women and children. He must always be courteous—though he may be excused for a little rudeness when he has been drinking and so is not quite himself. He must be hospitable—ready to share his last crust with anybody, and his last drink with anybody of his class. And he must know how to ride and shoot and play the principal games of cards. Those are the main things. You are all that, are you not?"

She looked straight at him as she asked this question, speaking still in the same entirely matter-of-fact tone. But Maltham did not look straight back at her as he answered it. The creed that she set forth had queer articles in it, but its essentials were searching—so searching that his look was directed rather indefinitely toward the horizon as he replied, a little weakly perhaps: "Why, of course."

She seemed to be content with this not wholly conclusive answer; but as he was not content with it himself, and rather dreaded a cross-examination, he somewhat suddenly shifted the talk to a subject that he was sure would engross her thoughts. "How splendidly the Nixie goes!" he said. "She is a racer, and no mistake!"

"Indeed she is!" Ulrica exclaimed, with the fervour upon which he had counted. "She is the very fastest boat on the bay. And then she is so weatherly! Why, I can sail her into the very eye of the wind!"

"Yes, she has the look of being weatherly. But she wouldn't be if you didn't manage her so well. Who taught you how to sail?"

"It was old Gustav Bergmann—one of the fishermen here on the Point, you know. And he said," she went on with a little touch of pride, "that he never could have made such a good sailor of me if I had not had it in my blood—because I am a Swede."

"But you are an American."

Ulrica did not answer him immediately, and when she did speak it was with the same curiously slow thoughtfulness that he had observed when she was explaining the difference between her father's life and her own life in the solitude of Minnesota Point.

"I do not think I am," she said. "I do not know many American women, but I am not like any American woman I know. You see, I am very like my mother. Father says so, and I feel it—I cannot tell you just how I feel it, but I do. For one thing, I am more than half a savage, father says—like some of the wild Indians he has known. He is in fun, of course, when he says that; but he really is right, I am sure. Did you ever want to kill anybody, Mr. Maltham?"

"No," said Maltham with a laugh, "I never did. Did you?"

Ulrica remained grave. "Yes," she answered, "and I almost did it, too. You see, it was this way: A man, one of the campers down on the Point, was rude to me. He was drunk, I think. But I did not think about his being drunk, and that I ought to make allowances for him. Somehow, I had not time to think. Everything got red suddenly—and before I knew what I was doing I had out my knife. The man gave a scream—not a cry, but a real scream: he must have been a great coward, I suppose—and jumped away just as I struck at him. I cut his arm a little, I think. But I am not sure, for he ran away as hard as he could run. I was very sorry that I had not killed him. I am very sorry still whenever I think about it. Now that was not like an American woman. At least, I do not know any American woman who would try to kill a man that way because she really could not help trying to. Do you?"

"No," Maltham answered, drawing a quick breath that came close to being a gasp. Ulrica's entire placidity, and her argumentative manner, had made her story rather coldly thrilling—and it was quite thrilling enough without those adjuncts, he thought.

She seemed pleased that his answer confirmed her own opinion. "Yes, I think I am right about myself," she went on. "I am sure that it is my Swedish blood that makes me like that. We do not often get angry, you know, we Swedes: but when we do, our anger is rage. We do not think nor reason. Suddenly we see red, as I did that day, and we want to strike to kill. It is queer, is it not, that we should be made like that?"

Maltham certainly was discovering the strange thoughts that he had set himself to search for. They rather set his nerves on edge. As she uttered her calm reflection upon the oddity of the Swedish temperament he shivered a little.

"I am afraid that you are cold," she said anxiously. "Shall we go about? Father will not like it if I make you uncomfortable."

"I am not at all cold," he answered. "And the sailing is delightful. Don't let us go about yet."

"Well, if you are quite sure that you are not cold, we will not. I do want to take you down to the inlet and show you what a glorious sea is running on the lake to-day. It is only half a mile more."

They sailed on for a little while in silence. The swift send of the boat through the water seemed so to fill Ulrica with delight that she did not care to speak—nor did Maltham, who was busied with his own confused thoughts. Suddenly some new and startling concepts of manhood and of womanhood had been thrust into his mind. They puzzled him, and he was not at all sure that he liked them. But he was absolutely sure that this curious and very beautiful woman who had uttered them interested him more profoundly than any woman whom ever he had known. That fact also bothered him, and he tried to blink it. That he could not blink it was one reason why his thoughts were confused. Presently, being accustomed to slide along the lines of least resistance, he gave up trying. "After all," was his conclusion, so far as he came to a conclusion, "it is only for a day."

As they neared the inlet the water roughened a little and the wind grew stronger. Ulrica eased off the sheet, and steadied it with a turn around the pin. In a few minutes more they had opened the inlet fairly, and beyond it could see the lake—stretching away indefinitely until its cold grey surface was lost against the cold grey sky. A very heavy sea was running. In every direction was the gleam of white-caps. On the beaches to the left and right of them a high surf was booming in. They ran on, close-hauled, until they were nearly through the inlet and were come into a bubble of water that set the boat to dancing like a cork. Now and then, as she fell off, a wave would take her with a thump and cover them with a cloud of spray.

The helm was pulling hard, but Ulrica managed it as easily and as knowingly as she had managed the setting of the sail—standing with her feet well apart, firmly braced, her tall figure yielding to the boat's motion with a superb grace. Suddenly a gust of wind carried away her hat, and in another moment the great mass of her golden hair was blowing out behind her in the strong eddy from the sail. Her face was radiant. Every drop of her Norse blood was tingling in her veins. Aslauga herself never was more gloriously beautiful—and never more joyously drove her boat onward through a stormy sea.

But Maltham did not perceive her beauty, nor did he in the least share her glowing enthusiasm. He had passed beyond mere nervousness and was beginning to be frightened. It seemed to him that she let the boat fall off purposely—as though to give the waves a chance to buffet it, and then to show her command over them by bringing it up again sharply into the wind; and he was certain that if they carried on for another five minutes, and so got outside the inlet, they would be swamped.

"Don't you think that we had better go about?" he asked. It did not please him to find that he had not complete control over his voice.

"But it is so glorious," she answered. "Shall we not keep on just a little way?"

"No!" he said sharply. "We must go about at once. We are in great danger as it is." He felt that he had turned pale. In spite of his strong effort to steady it, his voice shook badly and also was a little shrill.

"Oh, of course," she replied, with a queer glance at him that he did not at all fancy; "if you feel that way about it we will." The radiance died away from her face as she spoke, and with it went her intoxication of delight. And then her expression grew anxious as she looked about her, and in an anxious tone she added: "Indeed you are quite right, Mr. Maltham. We really are in a bad place here. I ought never to have come out so far. We must try to get back at once. But it will not be easy. I am not sure that the Nixie will stand it. I am sure, though, that she will do her best—and I will try to wear her as soon as I see a chance."

She luffed a little, that she might get more sea-room to leeward, and scanned the oncoming waves closely but without a sign of fear. "Now I think I can do it," she said presently, and put up the helm.

It was a ticklish move, for they were at the very mouth of the inlet, but the Nixie paid off steadily until she came full into the trough of the sea. There she wallowed for a bad ten seconds. A wave broke over the coaming of the cockpit and set it all aflow. Maltham went still whiter, and began to take off his coat. It was with the greatest difficulty that he kept back a scream. Then the boat swung around to her course—Ulrica's hold upon the tiller was a very steady one—and in another minute they were sliding back safely before the wind. In five minutes more they were in the smooth water of the bay.

Ulrica was the first to speak, and she spoke in most contrite tones. "It was very, very wrong in me to do that, Mr. Maltham," she said. "And it was wicked of me, too—for I have given my solemn promise to father that I never will go out on the lake when it is rough at all. Please, please forgive me for taking you into such danger in such a foolish way. It was touch and go, you know, that we pulled through. Please say that you forgive me. It will make me a little less wretched if you do."

The danger was all over, and Maltham had got back both his color and his courage again. "Why, it was nothing!" he said. "Or, rather, it was a good deal—for it gave me a chance to see what a magnificent sailor you are. And—and it was splendidly exciting out there, wasn't it?"

"Wasn't it!" she echoed rapturously. "And oh," she went on, "I am so glad that you take it that way! It is a real load off my mind! Will you please take the tiller for a minute while I put up my hair?"

As she arranged the shining masses of her golden hair—her full round arms uplifted, the wind pressing her draperies close about her—Maltham watched her with a burning intentness. The glowing reaction following escape from mortal peril was upon him and the tide of his barely saved life was running full. In Ulrica's stronger nature the same tide may have been running still more impetuously. For an instant their eyes met. She flushed and looked away.

He did not speak, and the silence seemed to grow irksome to her. She broke it, but with a perceptible effort, as she took the tiller again. "Do you know," she said, "I did think for a minute that you were scared." She laughed a little, and then went on more easily: "And if you really had been scared I should have known, of course, that you were not a gentleman! Was it not absurd?"

Her words roused him, and at the same time chilled him. "Yes, it was very absurd," he answered not quite easily. And then, with presence of mind added: "But I was scared, and badly scared—for you. I did not see how I possibly could get you ashore if the boat filled."

"You could not have done it—we should have been drowned," Ulrica replied with quiet conviction. "But because you are a gentleman it was natural, I suppose, for you not to think about yourself and to worry that way about me. You could not help it, of course—but I like it, all the same."

Maltham reddened slightly. Instead of answering her he asked: "Would you mind running up along the Point and landing me on the other side of the canal? I want to hurry home and get into dry things—and that will save me a lot of time, you know."

"Oh," she cried in a tone of deep concern, "are you not coming back with me? I shall have a dreadful time with father, and I am counting on you to help me through."

Maltham had foreseen that trouble with the Major was impending, and wanted to keep out of it. He disliked scenes. "Of course, if you want me to, I'll go back with you," he answered. And added, drawing himself together and shivering a little, "I don't believe that I shall catch much cold."

"What a selfish creature I am!" Ulrica exclaimed impetuously. "Of course you must hurry home as fast as you can. What I shall get from father will not be the half of what I deserve. And to think of my thinking about your getting me off from a scolding at the cost of your being ill! Please do not hate me for it—though you ought to, I am sure!"

Having carried his point, Maltham could afford to be amiable again. He looked straight into her eyes, and for an instant touched her hand, as he said: "No, I shall not—hate you!" His voice was low. He drawled slightly. The break gave to his phrase a telling emphasis.

It was not quite fair. He knew thoroughly the game that he was playing; while Ulrica, save so far as her instinct might guide her, did not know it at all. She did not answer him—and he was silent because silence just then was the right move. And so they went on without words until they were come to the landing-place beside the canal. Even then—for he did not wish to weaken a strong impression—he made the parting a short one: urging that she also must hurry home and get on dry clothes. It did not strike her, either then or later, that he would have shown a more practical solicitude in the premises had he not made her come three miles out of her way.

Indeed, as she sailed those three miles back again, her mind was in no condition to work clearly. In a confused way, that yet was very delightful, she went over to herself the events of that wonderful day—in which, as she vaguely realized, her girlhood had ended and her womanhood had begun. But she dwelt most upon the look that he had given her when he told her, with the break in his phrase, that he would not hate her; and upon the touch of his hand at parting, and his final speech, also with a break in it: "I shall see you to-morrow—if you care to have me come."

At the club that evening Maltham wrote a very entertaining letter to Miss Eleanor Strangford, in Chicago: telling her about the queer old Major and his half-wild daughter, and how the daughter had taken him out sailing and had brought him back drenched through. He was a believer in frankness, and this letter—while not exhaustive—was of a sort to put him right on the record in case an account of his adventures should reach his correspondent by some other way. He would have written it promptly in any circumstances. It was the more apposite because he had promised to write every Sunday to Miss Strangford—to whom he was engaged.

VII

Maltham left his office early the next afternoon and went down the Point again. He had no headache, the wind had shifted to the southward, and all about him was a flood of spring sunshine. Yet even under these cheerful conditions he found the Point rather drearily desolate. He gave the graveyard a wide berth when he came to it, and looked away from it. His desire was strong that he might forget where he had seen Ulrica's name for the first time. He was not superstitious, exactly; but his sub-consciousness that the direction in which he was sliding—along the lines of least resistance—was at least questionable, made him rather open to feelings about bad and good luck.

Being arrived at Eutaw Castle, he inferred from what the Major said and from what Ulrica looked that the domestic storm of the previous day had been a vigorous one—and was glad that he had kept out of it. But it had blown over pretty well, and his good-natured chaff about their adventure swept away the few remaining clouds.

"It is vehy handsome of yo', suh," said the Major, "to treat the matteh as yo' do. My daughteh's conduct was most inexcusable—fo' when she cahried yo' into that great dangeh she broke heh sacred wo'd to me."

"But it was quite as much my fault as hers," Maltham answered. "I should not have let her go. You see, the sailing was so delightfully exciting that we both lost our heads a little. Luckily, I got mine back before it was too late."

"Yo' behaved nobly, suh, nobly! My daughteh has told me how youah only thought was of heh dangeh, and how white yo' went when yo' realized youah inability to save heh if the boat went down. Those weh the feelings of a gentleman, suh, and of a vehy gallant gentleman—such as yo' suahly ah. Youah conduct could not have been fineh, Mr. Maltham, had yo' been bo'n and bred in South Cahrolina. Suh, I can say no mo' than that!"

Ulrica took little part in the talk. Her eyes were dull and she moved languidly, as though she were weary. Not until her father left the room—going to fetch his maps and charts, that he might demonstrate the Point's glorious future—did she speak freely.

"I could not sleep last night, Mr. Maltham," she said hurriedly. "I lay awake the whole night—thinking about what I had done, and about what you must think about me for doing it. If I had drowned you, after breaking my word to father that way, it would have been almost murder. It was very noble of you, just now, to say that it was as much your fault as it was mine. But it was not. It was my fault all the way through."

"But the danger was just as great for you as it was for me," Maltham answered. "You would have been drowned too, you know."

"Oh, that would not have counted. It would not have counted at all. I should have got only what I deserved."

Maltham came close to her and took her hand. "Don't you think that it would have counted for a good deal to me?" he asked. Then he dropped her hand quickly and moved away from her as the Major re-entered the room.

Inasmuch as he would have been drowned along with her, this speech was lacking in logic; but Ulrica, who was not on the lookout for logic just then, was more than satisfied with it. Suddenly she was elate again. For the dread that had kept her wakeful had vanished: his second thoughts about the peril into which she had taken him had not set him against her—he still was the same! She could not answer him with her lips, but she answered him with her eyes.

Maltham's feelings were complex as he saw the effect that his words had upon her. He had made several resolutions not to say anything of that sort to her again. Even if she did like flirting (as he had put it in his own mind) it was not quite the thing, under the existing conditions, for him to flirt with her. He resolutely kept the word flirting well forward in his thoughts. It agreeably qualified the entire situation. As he very well knew, Miss Strangford was not above flirting herself. But it was not easy to classify under that head Ulrica's sudden change in manner and the look that she had given him. In spite of himself, his first impression of her would come back and get in the way of the new impression that he very much wished to form. When he first had seen her—only the day before, but time does not count in the ordinary way in the case of those who have been close to the gates of death together—he had felt the fire that was in her, and had known that it slumbered. After what he had just seen in her eyes he could not conquer the conviction that the fire slumbered no longer and that he had kindled its strong flame.

Nor did he wholly wish to conquer this conviction. It was thrillingly delightful to think that he had gained so great a power over her, for all her queenliness, in so short a time. Over Miss Strangford—the contrast was a natural one—he had very little power. That young lady was not queenly, but she had a notable aptitude for ruling—and came by it honestly, from a father whose hard head and hard hand made him conspicuous even among Chicago men of affairs. It was her strength that had attracted him to her; and the discovery that with her strength was sweetness that had made him love her. He was satisfied that she loved him in return—but he could not fancy her giving him such a look as Ulrica had just given him; still less could he fancy her whole being irradiated by a touch and a word. And so he came again to the same half-formed conclusion that he had come to in the boat on the preceding day: he would let matters drift along pleasantly a little farther before he set them as they should be with a strong hand.

This chain of thought went through his mind while the Major was exhibiting the maps and expounding the Point's future; and his half-conclusion was a little hastened by the Major's abrupt stop, and sudden facing about upon him with: "I feah, suh, that yo' do not quite follow me. If I have not made myself cleah, suh, I will present the matteh in anotheh way."

Maltham shot a quizzical glance at Ulrica—which made her think that she knew where his thoughts had been wool-gathering, and so brought more light to her eyes—and answered with a becoming gravity: "The fact is I didn't quite catch the point that you were making, Major, and I'll be very much obliged if you'll take the trouble to go over it again."

"It is no trouble—it is a pleasuah, suh," the Major replied with an animated affability. And with that he was off again, and ran on for an hour or more—until he had established the glorious future of Minnesota Point in what he believed to be convincing terms. "When the time to which I am looking fo'wa'd comes, Mr. Maltham, and it will come vehy soon, suh," he said in enthusiastic conclusion, "it stands to reason that the fortunes of this great metropolis of the No'thwest will be fo'eveh and unchangeably established. Only I must wahn yo', suh, that we must begin to get ready fo' it right away. We must take time by the fo'lock and provide at once—I say at once, suh—fo' the needs of that magnificent futuah that is almost heah now!"

He took a long breath as he finished his peroration, and then came down smiling to the level of ordinary conversation and added: "I feah, Mr. Maltham, that I pehmit my enthusiasm to get away with me a little. I feah I may even boah yo', suh. I promise not to say anotheh wohd on the subject this evening. And now, as it is only a little while befo' suppeh, we cannot do betteh, suh, than to take a drink."

Maltham had not intended to stay to supper. He even had intended not to. But he did—and on through the evening until the Major had to warn him that he either must consent to sleep in Eutaw Castle or else hurry along up the Point before the ferry-boat stopped running for the night. The Major urged him warmly to stay. Finding that his invitation certainly would not be accepted, he went off for a lantern—and was rather put out when Maltham declined it and said that he could find his way very well by the light of the stars.

Actually, Maltham did not find his way very well by the light of the stars. Two or three times he ran against trees. Once—this was while he was trying to give the graveyard a wide offing—he stumbled over a root and fell heavily. When he got up again he found that he had wrenched his leg, and that every step he took gave him intense pain. But he was glad of his flounderings against trees, and of his fall and the keen pain that followed it—for he was savage with himself.

And yet it was not his fault, he grumbled. Why had the Major gone off that way to hunt up a lantern—and so left them alone? Toward the end of his walk—his pain having quieted his excitement, and so lessened his hatred of himself—he added much more lightly: "But what does a single kiss amount to, after all?"

VIII

It was on a day in the early autumn that Maltham at last decided definitely—making effective his half-formed resolution of the spring-time—to stop drifting and to set things as they should be with a strong hand. But he had to admit, even as he formed this resolution, that setting things quite as they should be no longer was within his power.

The summer had gone quickly, most astonishingly quickly, he thought; and for the most part pleasantly—though it had been broken by certain interludes, not pleasant, during which he had been even more savage with himself than he had been during that walk homeward from Eutaw Castle in the dark. But, no matter how it had gone, the summer definitely was ended—and so were his amusing sessions with the Major over the future of Minnesota Point, and his sails with Ulrica on the lake and about the bay. Ice already had begun to form in the sheltered parts of the harbour, and the next shift of wind into the North would close the port for the winter by freezing everything hard and fast. All the big ships had steamed away eastward. On the previous day he had despatched the last vessel of his own line. His work for the season was over, and he was ready to return to Chicago. In fact, he had his berth engaged on that night's train. Moreover, in another month he was to be married: in her latest letter Miss Strangford had fixed the day. Then they were going over to the Riviera, and probably to Egypt. In the spring they were coming back again, but not to Duluth nor even to Chicago. He was to take charge of the Eastern office of the line, and their home would be in New York. These various moves were so definite and so final as to justify him in saying to himself, as he did say to himself, that the Duluth episode was closed.

He had hesitated about going down to Eutaw Castle to say good-bye, but in the end had perceived that the visit was a necessity. The Major and Ulrica knew that he was to leave Duluth when navigation was closed for the winter—indeed, of late, Ulrica had referred to that fact frequently—but he had not confided to them the remainder of his rather radical programme. He meant to do that later by letter—from the Riviera or from Egypt. In the mean time, until he was married and across the Atlantic, it was essential to keep unbroken the friendly relations which had made his summer—even with its bad interludes—so keenly delightful to him; and to go away without paying a farewell visit he knew would be to risk a rupture that very easily might lead on to a catastrophe. Moreover, as he said to himself, there need not be anything final about it. Even though the harbour did freeze, the railways remained open—and it was only sixteen hours from Chicago to Duluth by the fast train. To suggest that he might be running up again soon would be a very simple matter: and would not be straining the truth, for he knew that the pull upon him to run up in just that way would be almost irresistibly strong.

In fact, the pull was of such strength that all of his not excessive will power had to be exerted to make him go away at all—at least, to go away alone. Very many times he had thought of the possibility of reversing his programme completely: of making his wedding journey with Ulrica, and of writing from some far-off place to Miss Strangford that he had happened to marry somebody else and that she was free. But each time that he had considered this alternative he had realized that its cost would come too high: a break with his own people, the loss of the good berth open to him in New York, the loss of his share of Miss Strangford's share of the grain-elevators and other desirable properties which would come to her when her father died. But for these practical considerations, as he frequently and sorrowingly had assured himself, he would not have hesitated for a moment—being satisfied that, aside from them, such a reversal of his plans would be better in every way. For he knew that while Miss Strangford had and Ulrica had not his formal promise to marry her, it was Ulrica who had the firmer hold upon his heart; and he also knew that while Ulrica would meet his decision against her savagely—and, as he believed, feebly—with her passion, Miss Strangford would meet the reverse of that decision calmly and firmly with her strength. The dilemma so nearly touched the verge of his endurance that he even had contemplated evading it altogether by shooting himself. But he had not got beyond contemplation. For that sort of thing he was lacking in nerve.

It was because facing what he knew was a final parting—even though Ulrica would not know it—would be so bitter hard for him that he had hesitated about making his visit of good-bye. But when he had decided that it was a necessity—that the risk involved in not making it outweighed the pain that it would cost him—he came about again: adding to his argument, almost with a sob, that he could not go away like that, anyhow—that he must see her once more!

And so he went down the Point again, knowing that he went for the last time—and on much the same sort of a day, as it happened, as that on which his first visit had been made: a grey, chill day, with a strong wind drawing down the lake that tufted it with white-caps and that sent a heavy surf booming in upon the shore. He had no headache, but he had a heartache that was still harder to bear.

He had intended to take the tram-car—that he might hurry down to the Castle, and get through with what he had to do there, and so away again quickly. But when he had crossed the canal he let the car go off without him—for the good reason that the meeting and the parting might not come so soon. And for this same reason he walked slowly, irresolutely. Once or twice he halted and almost turned back. It all was very unlike his brisk, assured advance on that far back day—ages before, it seemed to him—when he went down the Point for the first time.

As he went onward, slowly, he was thinking about that day: how it had been without intention that he turned eastward instead of westward when he started on his walk; how a whim of the moment had led him to cross the canal; how the mere chance of the three church-bound women hurrying into the ferry-boat had prevented his immediate return. He fell to wondering, dully, what "chance" is, anyway—this force which with a grim humour uses our most unconsidered actions for the making or the unmaking of our lives; and the hopeless puzzle of it all kept his mind unprofitably employed until he had passed the last of the little houses, and had gone on through the stunted pines, and so was come to the desolate graveyard.

He did not shun the graveyard, as he had shunned it all the summer long. The need for that was past—now that, in reality, Ulrica's name had come to be to him a name upon a grave. For a while he stood with his arms resting on the broken fence, looking before him in a dull way and feeling a dull surprise because he found the dismal place still precisely as he remembered it. That in so very long a time it should not have become more ruinous seemed to him unreasonable. Then he walked on past the little church, still slowly and hesitatingly, and so came at last to the Castle. Oddly enough, the Major was standing again at the same lower window, and saw him, and came out to welcome him. For a moment he had a queer feeling that perhaps it still was that first day—that he might have been dozing in the pine woods, somewhere, and that the past summer was all a dream.

The Major was beaming with friendliness. "Aha, Masteh Geo'ge, I'm glad to see yo' and to congratulate yo'!" he said heartily. And he gave Maltham a cordial dig in the ribs as he added: "Yo' ah a sly dog, a vehy sly dog, my boy, to keep youah secret from us! But I happened to be up in town yestehday, and by the mehest chance I met Captain Todd, of youah boat, and he told me why yo' ah going back to Chicago in such a huhy, suh! It is a great match, a magnificent match that yo' ah making, Geo'ge, and I congratulate yo' with all my haht. I should be glad of the oppo'tunity to congratulate Miss Strangfo'd also. Fo' I am not flattehing yo', Geo'ge, when I tell yo' that she could not have found a betteh husband had she gone to look fo' him in South Cahrolina. Suh, I can say no mo' than that!"

The Major's speech was long enough, fortunately, for Maltham to get over the shock of its beginning before he had to answer it. But even with that breathing space his answer was so lame that the Major had to invent an excuse for its lack of heartiness. "I don't doubt that afteh youah chilly walk, Geo'ge, yo' ah half frozen," he said. "Come right in and have a drink. It will do yo' good, suh. It will take the chill out of youah bones!"

Maltham was glad to accept this invitation, and the size of the drink that he took did the Major's heart good. "That's right, Geo'ge!" he said with great approval. "A South-Cahrolinian couldn't show a betteh appreciation of good liquoh than that!" He raised his glass and continued: "I drink, suh, to Miss Strangfo'd's health, and to youahs. May yo' both have the long lives of happiness that yo' both desehve!" He put down his empty glass and added: "I will call Ulrica. She will be glad to see yo' and to offeh yo' heh congratulations." He paused for a moment, and then went on in a less cheerful tone: "But I must wahn yo', Geo'ge, that she has a bad headache and is not quite hehself to-day—and so may not manifest that wahm co'diality in regahd to youah present and futuah happiness that she suahly feels. I confess, Geo'ge," the Major continued anxiously, "I am not quite comfo'table about heh. She seems mo' out of so'ts than a meah headache ought to make heh. And fo' the last month and mo', as yo' may have obsehved youahself, she has not seemed to be hehself at all. I don't mind speaking this way frankly to yo', Geo'ge, fo' yo' know how my haht is wrapped up in heh. As I once told yo', it was only my love fo' that deah child that kept me alive when heh motheh left me," the Major's voice was very unsteady, "and it is God's own truth that if anything went wrong with heh; if—if I weh to lose heh too, Geo'ge, I suahly should want to give right up and die. I could not live without heh—I don't think that I could live without heh fo' a single day!"

There were tears in the Major's eyes as he spoke, and his last word was almost a sob. Maltham was very pale. He did not attempt an answer.

"Thank yo', Geo'ge," the Major went on presently. "I see by youah looks that I have youah sympathy. I am most grateful to yo' fo' it, most grateful indeed!" In a moment he added: "Hahk! She's coming now! I heah heh step outside. Hahk how heavy and slow it is—and she always as light on heh feet as a bird! To heah heh walk that way almost breaks my haht!" And then he checked himself suddenly, and tried to look rather unusually cheerful as Ulrica entered the room.

Being braced to meet some sort of a storm, Maltham was rather put about by not encountering it. Ulrica certainly was looking the worse for her headache—her eyes were duller than usual, and there were dark marks under them, and she was very pale; but she did not seem to be at all excited, and the greeting that she gave him was out of the ordinary only in that she did not offer him her hand. He drew a quick breath, and the tense muscles of his mind relaxed. If she were taking it in that quiet way, he thought, he had worked himself into heroics for nothing. And then, quite naturally, he felt a sharp pang of resentment because she did take it so quietly. Her calmness ruffled his self-love.

As she remained silent, making no reference to Maltham's engagement, the Major felt that the proprieties of the case were not being attended to and prompted her. "I have been wishing Geo'ge joy and prospehrity, my deah," he said. "Have yo' nothing to say to him youahself about his coming happiness?"

"Yes," she answered slowly, "I have a great deal to say to him—so much that I am going to carry him off in the Nixie to say it." She turned to Maltham and added: "You will come with me for a last sail, will you not?"

Maltham hesitated, and then answered doubtfully: "Isn't it a little cold for sailing to-day? Your father says that you are not feeling well. I do think that it will be better not to go—unless you really insist upon it, of course."

"Yo' mustn't think of such a thing!" the Major struck in peremptorily. "The weatheh is like ice. Yo' will catch yo' death of cold!"

"It is no colder, father, than that day when I took George out in the Nixie for the first time—and it will do my head good," Ulrica answered. And added, to Maltham: "I do insist. Come!"

Against the Major's active remonstrance, and against Maltham's passive resistance, she carried her point. "Come!" she said again—and led Maltham out by the side door into the ragged garden. There she left him for a moment and returned to her father—who was standing in a very melancholy way before the fire.

"Do not mind, father," she said. "It is the best thing for me—it is the only thing for me."

He looked at her inquiringly, puzzled by her words and by her vehement tone. Suddenly she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Remember always, father, that I have loved you with my whole heart for almost my whole life long. And remember always," she went on with a curiously savage earnestness, "that I am loving you with my whole heart—with every bit of it—to-day!"

"I am suah yo' ah, my daughteh," the Major answered, very huskily.

She kissed him again, holding him tight in her arms. Then she unclasped her arms with a sudden quick energy and swiftly left the room.

She led Maltham silently to the boat, and silently—when she had cast off the mooring—motioned to him to enter it. He found this silence ominous, and tried to break it. But the commonplace words which he wanted to speak would not come.

And then, as he sat in the stern and mechanically steadied the tiller while she hoisted the sail, the queer feeling again came over him that it still was that wonderful first day. This feeling grew stronger as all that he remembered so well was repeated: Ulrica's rapid movement aft to the tiller; his own shifting of his seat; her quick loosing of the centreboard as the wind caught them; and then the heeling over of the boat, and her steady motion, and the bubbling hiss of the water beneath the bow. It all so lulled him, so numbed his sense of time and fact, that suddenly he looked up in her face and smiled—just as he had done on that first day.

But the look in Ulrica's eyes killed his smile, and brought him back with a sharp wrench to reality. Her eyes no longer were dull. They were glowing—and they seemed to cut into him like knives.

"Well," she asked, "have you anything to say for yourself?"

"No," he answered, "except that fate has been too strong for me."

"Fate sometimes is held accountable for a great deal," she said dryly, but with a catch in her voice.

They were silent again, and for a long while. The boat was running down the bay rapidly—even more rapidly, the wind being much stronger, than on that first day. They could hear, as they had not heard then, the surf crashing upon the outer beach of the Point.

The silence became more than he could stand. "Can you forgive me?" he asked at last.

Ulrica looked at him with a curious surprise. "No," she answered quite calmly. "Think for a moment about what you have done and about what you intend to do. Do you not see that it is impossible?" "But I love you!" he cried eagerly. "I love you more than I can tell. It is not my will that is separating us—it is fate!"

Her look softened for an instant as he began, but as he ended it hardened again. She did not answer him. A strong gust of wind heeled the boat farther over. They were going at a slashing rate. Before them the inlet was opening. The booming of the surf was very loud.

He saw that his words had taken hold upon her, and repeated them: "I do love you, Ulrica—and, oh, you don't know how very wretched I have been! More than once in this past month I have been very near killing myself."

She gave him a searching look, and seemed satisfied that he spoke the truth. "I am glad that you have wanted to kill yourself," she said slowly and earnestly. They were at the mouth of the inlet. As she spoke, she luffed sharply and they entered it close-hauled.

"Yes," she repeated, speaking still more earnestly, "I am very glad of that. It makes me feel much easier in my mind about what I am going to do."

Her tone startled him. He looked up at her quickly and anxiously. "What are you going to do?" he asked. "Drown you," she answered simply.

For an instant he did not take in the meaning of her words. Then his face became very white, though he tried to smile. His voice shook as he said: "I do not think that this is a good time for joking." The boat was biting her way into the wind sharply, plunging and bucketing through the partly spent waves which came in from outside.

"You know that I am not joking," Ulrica answered very quietly. "I am going to drown you, and to drown myself too. I have thought it all out, and this seems the best thing to do. It is the best for father," her voice trembled, "and it is the best," she went on again, firmly, "for me. As for you, it does not matter whether it is the best for you or not—it is what you deserve. For you are a liar and a traitor—a liar and a traitor to me, and to that other woman too!" As she spoke these last words her calmness left her, and there was the ring of passionate anger in her tone. The fire that she had been smothering, at last was in full blaze.

They were at the very mouth of the inlet. The white-capped surface of the lake swelled and tossed before them. The boat was wallowing heavily. Maltham's paleness changed to a greenish-grey. He uttered a shrill scream—a cry of weakly helpless terror. "Put about! For God's sake put about!" he gasped. "We shall be drowned!"

For answer, she hauled the sheet a little and brought the boat still closer into the wind—heading straight out into the lake. "I told you once that the Nixie could sail into the wind's eye," she said, coolly. "Now she is doing it. Does she not go well?"

At that, being desperate, he rallied a little. Springing to his feet, but standing unsteadily, he grasped the tiller and tried to shift the helm. Ulrica, standing firmly, laid her hand flat against his breast and thrust him away savagely—with such force that he reeled backward and fell, striking against the combing and barely missing going over the side.

"You fool!" she exclaimed. "Do you not see that it is too late?" She did not trouble herself to look at him. Her gaze was fixed in a keen ecstasy on the great oncoming waves.

What she said was true—it was too late. They were fairly out on the open lake, and all possibility of return was gone. To try to go about would be to throw the Nixie into the trough of the sea—and so send her rolling over like a log. At the best, the little boat could live in that surge and welter for only a very few minutes more.

Maltham did not attempt to rise. His fall had hurt him, and what little was left of his spirit was cowed. He lay in a miserable heap, uttering little whimpering moans. The complaining noise that he made annoyed her. For the last time she looked at him, burning him for an instant with her glowing eyes. "Silence, you coward!" she cried, fiercely—and at her strong command he was still. Then her look was fixed on the great oncoming waves again, and she cast him out from her mind.

Even in her rage—partly because of it—Ulrica felt in every drop of her Norse blood the glow and the thrill of this glorious battle with great waters. The sheer delight of it was worth dying for—and so richly worth living through to the very last tingling instant that she steered with a strong and a steady hand. And again—as she stood firmly on the tossing boat, her draperies blown close about her, her loosened hair streaming out in golden splendour—she was Aslauga's very self. Sorrow and life together were ending well for her—in high emotion that filled and satisfied her soul. Magnificent, commanding, defiant, she sailed on in joyful triumph: glad and eager to give herself strongly to the strong death-clasp of the waves.