The bubble of Rockhaven, the flight of Weston, the suicide of Hill furnished a few items for the city press, a little gossip among interested ones for a week, then passed into history, to be forgotten by most people. Page, lionized for a day by other brokers whose scalps he had saved, resumed his operations as usual with an increased clientele; while Simmons, the defeated one in this battle of values, was seldom seen on the floor of the exchange. Jack Nickerson returned to his wonted existence, speculating a little, gambling in the club when congenial spirits gathered, and, as usual, sneering at the weaknesses of all human kind; while Winn, growing more despondent day by day at the turn in the tide of affairs, hardly knew what to do with himself. Occasionally he walked past the door of Weston & Hill's office, now closed by the hand of law, and glancing at the legal paper pasted inside it, muttered a curse and went his way. Sometimes he visited the exchange to watch the unceasing tossing of stock dice for an hour, to kill time; then to Page's office to chat with him, and then to the club, feeling himself less and less in touch with this grind of city life as the days went by.

He lived, too, in daily expectation of a letter from Mona, and receiving none, that added to his gloom. Just why, he could not understand; and then a species of pride crept into his feelings, and he imagined she might have been cautioned by her mother not to answer him. He began to feel a little hurt at the thought that this timid girl might feel afraid of him; and although swayed by emotions and seemingly his own when they parted, he feared that on reflection she had decided it best to end the matter thus.

To one who is despondent, all things seem awry, and Winn was now so low down in spirits that he was ready to believe himself of no account to any one—even this simple child of nature whose soul was attuned to her violin. That Jess was his cordial friend he felt sure; but a timid girl, utterly lacking in worldly wisdom and as wayward in feelings as the varying sounds of the waves beating against her island home, was another matter.

Winn's thoughts now were full of bitterness.

One Sunday, coming out of church ahead of his aunt who had paused to chat with some one, he encountered in the vestibule, dressed in faultless fall costume, a picture of beauty and good taste,—Ethel Sherman!

"Why, Winn," she said, advancing and extending a gloved hand, "I am very glad to see you back again. I've heard all about you and the fame you have achieved and how good you have been to your aunt. I must insist that you call this evening and tell me all about it. I've a bone to pick with you also, you naughty boy, for not answering my letter."

And Winn, moved as any man would be by such captivating words uttered by a young goddess in fashionable raiment, forgot all his old-time resentment for a moment, and answered as any well-bred and susceptible young man would.

"I am very glad to see you, Ethel," he said cordially, "and it's nice of you to say such pleasant things. If you haven't any better amusement for this evening, I will call."

And call he did, to find this imperious beauty arrayed in an exquisite evening gown, in his honor, fairly exhaling sweet smiles and graceful words. And with them came back, also, all the old-time charm of her siren voice, her keen wit, her polished sarcasms, her devil-may-care bon camaraderie.

For two years Ethel Sherman had been a daily thorn in Winn's side. He had met her occasionally, when he simply bowed and exchanged the civilities of polite society, but nothing more. Occasionally his aunt, a born match-maker, had let fall a word of praise for Ethel, the intent of which was palpable to Winn, but in spite of which he had determined to put her out of his thoughts. When her letter reached him on the island, he mentally contrasted her with Mona and to the former's detriment, more than ever thinking of her as the type of a fashionable young woman sneered at by Nickerson. His illusions regarding her had all vanished and he saw her as she was,—a beautiful, heartless, ambitious Circe, conscious of her power, and enjoying it.

And this evening, seated in her daintily furnished parlor, and facing the most exquisite adornment it contained, he regarded her as he did the marble copy of the Greek Slave, perched on a pedestal in one corner.

But Ethel Sherman was not the girl to be long considered marble, whether she was or not; and was just now piqued by Winn's coolly polite indifference.

"Well, my dear friend," she said eagerly, when the first commonplaces had been exchanged, "tell me all about this unheard-of island where you have been buried all summer, and this queer old fellow you brought up in the city, and the barefooted fisher maids you met there, and which one caught your fancy. I've just been dying to hear."

"You seem to want an entire chapter of a novel in one breath," answered Winn, smiling. "How did you find out I brought any one to the city?"

"Oh, I am still able to read the papers," she laughed, "and Jack called the other evening. It's all over the city, as well as your firm's collapse and the part you played in it. Oh, you have become famous in a day, as it were, and people who have never set eyes on you are talking about you."

Winn smiled, for what man could resist such subtile flattery.

"I wasn't aware that I was a mark for gossip," he said, "though Weston & Hill must have been, and deservedly. I'm not sorry for Hill, however, for I despised him, but I rather liked Weston, even after I discovered he was a rascal, he was such a jolly, good-natured one."

"So Jack says," answered Ethel, "and happily indifferent as to whom he swindled. It was first come, first served, with him."

"He served Hill the worst dose," said Winn, "and it looks as if Hill were the ultimate object of his plot, and the rest of us only pawns in his game."

"You at least called 'checkmate' to him," answered Ethel, smiling admiration, "but tell me about the island. That is of more interest to me. The city end of this affair is now ancient history."

"Oh, the island is a poem," replied Winn, earnestly, "a spot to forget the world on and learn a new life. Its people are poor, but honest, kind, and truthful; their houses turkey coops, their customs ancient, their religion sincere, their livelihood gained by fishing, and the island a wild spruce-clad ledge of granite with bold sea-washed cliffs and an interior harbor that is a dream of peace, seldom rippled. There is an ancient beacon built by the Norsemen on a hill nine centuries ago, a ravine surpassingly grand with a cave called the Devil's Oven, and an old tide-mill at the head of their harbor, where a love-lorn girl once hanged herself."

"A charming spot, truly," said Ethel, "and if I had known all this last July, and there had been a comfortable hotel there, we should have summered on this delightful island instead of on the mountains."

"It would have amused you a week," replied Winn, smiling, "but not longer. There were no golf links or young dudes to flirt with there."

Ethel colored slightly.

"That is the worst of having friends," she said, "they are bound to gossip about one. I don't mind," she added gayly; "I am a flirt and admit it cheerfully, but what else are men good for?"

"Not much, I admit," answered Winn, sarcastically, "especially if they have money or prospects of it; and if not, they are good to practise on."

"Now, Winn, my dear fellow, don't emulate Jack Nickerson," she responded suavely, "the rÔle doesn't become you. You can be an adorable bear, but not a barking puppy."

"Jack's not a puppy," asserted Winn.

"I never said he was," answered Ethel. "He can be worse than that; he can be a gossipy old maid, always sneering, and that is more abominable than a puppy any day. But tell me about the people on the island, and which fisher maid you fell in love with."

"Why should you imagine I looked twice at any island maid?" answered Winn.

"Oh, you were bound to," asserted Ethel, laughing. "You wouldn't be the delightful man you are unless you did, so tell me all about her. Did she wear her flaxen hair in a braid and ask from beneath a sunbonnet, 'What are the wild waves saying?' while she stood barefoot beside you on the beach?"

"Oh, yes, and chewed spruce gum at the same time," he responded, also laughing.

"Even when you kissed her?" queried Ethel. "It must have lent a delightfully aromatic flavor."

Winn made no answer to this pointed sally. Instead he stroked his moustache musingly, while his thoughts flew back to Rockhaven and Mona.

Ethel eyed him keenly.

"Quit mooning," she said at last, "and come back to Erin. I do not expect you to admit you kissed this fair fisher maid. It wouldn't be gallant. But you can at least describe her. Is she dark or fair?"

"I haven't the least idea," he said, "she was so sweet and charming; her eyes might have been sea-green for all I can tell."

"You evade fairly well," rejoined his tormentor, "but not over well. You still need practice. Now tell me about this old fellow Jack described as a 'barnacled curiosity.'"

"Oh, Jess Hutton," replied Winn, relieved; "he is a curiosity, and of the salt of the earth. If there was any one I fell in love with on the island, it was he."

"That was fairly well done," laughed Ethel; "you are improving and in time may hope to deceive even me."

"Never," responded Winn, sarcastically; "you are too well skilled in the fine art of dissembling. You almost persuaded me to-day that you were really glad to see me, instead of anxious to find out all about Rockhaven and its fisher maids."

"That is unkind," replied Ethel, in a hurt tone, "and you know it. Didn't I write you a nice letter, and have I shown the least resentment at your failure to answer it? Come now, be nice and like your old dear self, you big bear. I don't care if you did fall in love with an island girl. You certainly would have been stupid not to if there was one worth it, and I respect you the more for protecting her. Your friend Nickerson wouldn't."

And Winn, mollified by this occult flattery, came near admitting—Mona and all the summer's illusion—for that was Winn Hardy's way. Only one thing saved her name from passing his lips,—the fact that no answer had come to his letter. He began to feel that none was likely to, and that the summer's idyl was destined to be but a memory like to the sound of church bells in his boyhood days.

Then, while his thoughts went back to the island and all it contained, he told the story of his sojourn there, of Jess and his fiddle, of the little church and its parson, the quarry and his men, of Mrs. Moore and Captain Roby and the fishermen who each day sailed away to return at night.

Only Mona was omitted.

And Ethel, listening, became entranced at his recital.

"Your stay there has done you good," she said, when it was ended, "and made a broader man of you. You are not the callow boy you were, and the heroism you have shown toward your poor aunt proves it. When she told me, the tears almost came to my eyes; and while I bow to the noble impulse you displayed, it was foolish after all. It would have been wiser to have kept the money in your own hands and taken care of her. She may be led again to make ducks and drakes of her money by another Weston. The world is full of them."

"It didn't occur to me then," answered Winn. "I did it on a sudden impulse, and now I think you are right."

And be it said parenthetically that this worldly yet sincere assertion of Ethel Sherman elevated her greatly in Winn's estimation.

"Come, Ethel," he said after a pause, "I want to forget all this business; now don't say any more about it. Most likely I acted foolishly—it isn't the first time, and may not be the last. If you want to cheer me up, play and sing for me. I've not heard a piano since I left the city."

Ethel, glad of the chance so to entertain him, complied. Strange to say the song she selected and rendered, as she well could, with exquisite feeling, was "Robin Adair." Then followed another of the same nationality.

"I've taken to the old Scotch songs lately," she said, when she turned from the piano, "and they are quite a fad with me now. They have so much more heart and soul in them than modern compositions."

"Give me 'Annie Laurie' now," suggested Winn, a shade on his face. And listening well while the graceful, ring-glittering fingers of Ethel Sherman leaped lightly over the ivory keys, her sweet voice gave new power to the immortal ballad of olden time, while he thought only of one summer day in the cave at Rockhaven and—Mona.

When he was taking his leave, and Ethel, unconscious of the mood she had evoked, stood beside him in the dimly lighted hall, she held out her hand. Her red, ripe lips were upraised, as if in temptation, and her eyes were tender with the spirit of her songs.

"I hope you have had a pleasant evening, Winn," she said tenderly, "and will call again soon. I'll promise not to mention the fisher maid any more if you will."

And Winn, glancing into the bright eyes that had once lured him to a heartache, held her hand a moment and then bade her good night.