When Lawrence heard that voice his hand suddenly slackened on the rope and the sail almost swung loose. The boat wavered, then with a quick firmness his grasp on the tiller and rope strengthened, and the craft gathered herself and darted forward, the water splashing away from her sides, the wind humming.

Lawrence did not turn his head, and at first he did not speak. The sail and the darkness shielded him.

"I thought I heard talking," went on the voice, "but the wind blew so I couldn't be sure. I hope no one knows about our lark. It would spoil the fun; besides, they'd worry."

Silence again. The boat gained in speed as it left the shelter of the land.

Was it a moment or was it a half-hour that passed before the voice said, sharply:

"Leander!" "It's not Leander," was the just audible answer.

To this there was no response for so long a time that Lawrence almost began to think that his sense of hearing had played him false. Had he really heard anything? He made a great effort to become calmer. He had pulled the sail taut and fastened it. He now stood perfectly still, with the tiller in his hand. The boat was heeling over as she went on, the water hissing past her. He took note that the sky seemed to be clearing; the stars were brighter.

He remembered that Leander and Prudence used to go out in the Vireo sometimes by themselves, for Prudence, as Carolyn often said, was better than most skippers, and Lee made a good second officer.

After awhile Lawrence knew that Prudence had left the cabin; he knew that she was standing close to him, steadying herself by the mast.

"Sit down," he said, with authority.

She obeyed, placing herself in the stern-seat near where he stood. In a moment he sat down beside her. He wondered if he should think to hold the tiller, his surprise was so great.

"Did you know I was here?" she asked.

"No. I felt a sudden wish to take a sail. I came down here; I met Leander at the wharf; I wouldn't let him go." "You wanted to be alone?'

"Yes," he said, with hesitation.

A silence, and then Prudence exclaimed, "Oh, how strange this is!"

"Yes."

Lawrence spoke mechanically. Presently he asked, "Shall I put the boat about?"

"I think you might better."

"Yes; of course we'll go back directly."

Another silence. Lawrence made no movement to turn. Then he coldly suggested that, now they were out, they might as well run across the bay. To this there was no reply.

After awhile Prudence asked softly, leaning near, that she might be heard, "I hope you're not too unhappy because you happen to be with me; are you?"

"No."

"You know I'm not to blame. You know I didn't plan it."

"I know that."

The boat went on. Neither of the two spoke for a long time. Then Lawrence put a question. "Are you miserable?"

"No."

"And yet I'm not Lord Maxwell."

"Oh, please don't!" "Prudence, give me your hand."

The girl's hand, cold as an icicle, was reached towards him, and was instantly crushed in his. He must still hold the tiller with his other hand, must still think of his boat.

"Prudence—"he hesitated.

He heard her whisper, "Rodney—"

Then he cried, "Why did you do such a damnable thing? Why? Why? We might have been two years man and wife."

At first she made no reply. He felt her shiver, then draw nearer to him.

The wind drove a blast towards them, and then all at once grew more gentle.

"I was mad to do it," she said, "and now I am punished,—punished cruelly,—and I shall suffer all my life. But you're going to be happy. I'm glad of that."

There were pauses between her sentences.

"Shall you be glad to have me happy with some one else?"

His voice had fallen to the cadence she remembered so well.

"Anything,—anything,—so that you are happy."

She spoke passionately, and she sobbed heavily after her words. Lawrence drew himself away, as if by command of something outside of himself. Then quickly he came nearer. He put his free arm about her and kissed her; he kissed her again and again, her lips responding to his caress, touching his own as they had done—ah, how long ago was it? It seemed as if time had been annihilated and he was back to that day when she had said she loved him. And how he had loved her!—as the cataract rushes over the cliff; the old trite comparison was the true one. At the meeting of their lips the torrent rushed over his soul again. What did anything matter, so that he had her again? Her arms were about his neck, her face was against his. He heard her say, "Dearest," in the same tone in which she had first spoken it to him, more than two years ago,—the tone he had tried to forget.

"We are not to blame," she said. "We didn't try to meet. It was a blessed chance,—oh, a blessed chance! And now we have met, how can we part?"

She hung upon him. She seemed to have flung from her all the self-control which she knew so well how to maintain.

It was as if her love had mastered all else; Lawrence felt it to be thus. It was love for him, he felt, that was stronger than everything besides. This conviction went to his head; it made him long to forget the present, that was not hers, in that past which had been hers.

And how strange, how unaccountable, that he should have found her in the boat. Was it a blessed chance?

Another and a wilder rush of wind; a black cloud just overhead sent down a dash of wind, which ceased as suddenly as it began.

It seemed to Lawrence that he had great presence of mind because he continued to keep control of the rudder. He tried to think as well as to feel, but his quick-coursing blood prevented thought.

How could he ever have believed for one moment that he loved Carolyn? Why, his whole heart belonged to this woman who was clinging to him as if it would be death to her to be put away.

He wished to speak, to say something that he ought to say, but his voice stopped in his throat.

The Vireo flashed by a dark body that had a light shining at its bows,—some ship swinging at anchor. Vaguely Lawrence heard a man on the deck above him shout out something, he could not distinguish what.

He and Prudence were flying through space—together. Then, still vaguely, and with a threatening horror, he thought of that picture of Francesca and her lover flying always through trackless air, never stopping, gulfs below them, infinitude above them. They had supped full of love, and now—

"Dearest!"

It was the voice of Prudence saying that word again. Lawrence wished to rouse himself to some sense of duty; but duty appeared to be something indefinite and very far away; and then perhaps he had been cherishing some old-fashioned, mistaken sense of what was duty. If that was so—

"Are you going to turn towards the shore?"

Prudence asked the question as if she were speaking of a thing impossible to do. She was looking at him with eyes whose beauty and deep, seductive power he could perceive through the dusk.

He held her still closer.

"Do you tell me to turn?" he murmured.

He knew that she hesitated; he felt a slight shudder go through her frame. Her very hesitation spurred him.

"If you tell me to turn," he said, in the same half-tone, close to her cheek, "I shall obey. But you will not tell me."

Silence. The spray from the waves sprinkled over the two. Far ahead, but growing brighter, a line of lights showed where the north shore curved. Prudence pressed still nearer to him.

"God forgive me!" she cried; "but I can't ask you to go back."

"And if we go on now, we shall not part again?" He spoke rapidly; there was a note of desperation in his words which she perceived.

"Go on," she said; "we will never part again."

She kissed his lips lightly, then put her head on his breast.

"God forgive us! God forgive us!" Lawrence also cried; and he added, as he held his burden tightly, "I can't let you go. No, not if heaven and hell tried to part us. Now you are mine."

But not all the intoxication of that moment could prevent the picture of Carolyn's face from coming suddenly and clearly before Lawrence as he spoke. That once it came, then vanished.

It was several moments before Prudence lifted her head and looked about her.

The north shore had approached still nearer,—so near that her strong eyes could see bonfires on the beach, and children feeding the flames, and cottages behind, lighted up by the flickering brilliance.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I don't know. Wherever you say. Somewhere where there's a clergyman who will marry us?" "Yes. And we must make some definite plan."

"You make the plan."

"I will try. As for me, I'd like to go on like this for days, driven by the warm wind between ocean and sky, and with no one but you,—no one but you." She repeated the words in a tone just loud enough for him to hear. "You love me, then?"

"Love you? Do I not prove it?" he asked.

"Yes, yes," she cried, in that intense tone which seems the voice of passion itself; "and as for me—oh, I will also prove to you how happy you make me."

A short time after Lawrence rose; he trimmed the sail. He looked at his watch; it was ten o'clock. The breeze was abating, and he succeeded in keeping the match-flame ablaze as he examined the dial.

"If the wind holds on at all," he said, "we can make Salem, or some of those towns."

"Why not Boston?" asked Prudence, who deftly helped her companion with the sail, or steered while he worked.

He glanced towards her. They had lighted a lantern and fastened it in the bows. Its rays fell on the girl's face. It was radiantly, excitedly pale; the soft luminousness of it might make a man forget many things. "And the Scythia sails to-morrow," she said.

She spoke after thought; she feared her words would hurt, but she had already roughly arranged her plan.

It was the Scythia in which Lawrence had engaged passage for himself and wife.

Prudence knew that he grew white, that he shut his lips tightly; but she also felt sure that the plan would soon present itself to him as the most feasible. Lawrence would go abroad with his wife; only his wife would not be Carolyn Ffolliott, but Prudence Ffolliott.

In that case all arrangements were already perfected. How could she have done better if she had known Rodney was coming down to the boat that night? She was striving with all her powers to think clearly and to the point.

She turned towards her companion and looked at him pleadingly, gently, and yet with power. Her face showed love, utter love; and it was that love which he could not resist.

"Let it be the Scythia," he said, shortly. Then, with tender violence, "Prudence, do you guess how I must love you? Do you guess what you must be to me? Good heavens! I don't know myself!" Before the girl could reply, in a lull of the decreasing wind, some indefinite, curious sound was heard in the bit of a cabin.

Lawrence started nervously. "What can that be?" he asked, sharply.

"Rodney," she said, persuasively, "don't let's be superstitious. That must be Devil."

"That crow? Is he on board?"

"Yes; Leander brought him, for fun, he said; he wanted to find out if Devil had any sea-legs. The crow perched on the back of a chair and seemed to go to sleep. I suppose he has wakened now."

"I don't know what we shall do with him."

"Let him loose before we leave the boat."

"But Aunt Letitia—they are attached to him."

"He will find his way home. Don't you know Lee has been drilling him,—taking him away and letting him go back, and tying a note to his leg? You need not fear; Devil knows enough."

At this moment the crow appeared in the narrow doorway, a ray of light striking him and bringing out his form in a curious, uncanny way. He made a harsh noise, lifting one foot as he did so, and looking first at Lawrence and then at Prudence.

The girl held out her hand and exclaimed: "Oh, you dear Devil, what are you thinking when you look like that?"

Her light tone relieved the tension which both had been feeling. The crow hopped forward towards Prudence's hand.

"What if we tie a note to him?" she asked. "Don't you think we might do that?"

Before Lawrence could reply, there was a loud shout close to them and above them—a sound of men swearing—a blow on the Vireo—a rush of black waters—another sound as of the coming together of heaven and earth—in the midst of it all a strange cry from the crow.

Lawrence had caught Prudence in his arms.

Presently he came to his senses and knew clearly that he was in the water, that Prudence was floating easily on his arm, that the Vireo had been run into and perhaps destroyed.

"Prudence," he said, quickly, "I'm sure they'll pick us up."

"Yes," she answered, quite calmly, "I'm sure they will."

It was a coastwise steamer, and almost immediately they saw her black bulk a few rods away; and then a light fell on the water from a boat near, and a man shouted. Lawrence raised his own voice in reply.