E-text prepared by Roger Frank
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JANET.

Frontispiece

Copyright, 1907,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved

LOVINGLY
I Dedicate this Book
TO
CARRIE LOUISE SMITH.

HER FRIENDSHIP WAS, AND ALWAYS WILL BE, A LIGHT TO
ME UPON MY WAY. THE CHART SHE SAILED BY
WILL GUIDE MY COURSE AND BRING ME, I
HOPE, AT LAST, TO THE HARBOR
WHERE SHE HAS GONE.

HARRIET T. COMSTOCK.

Flatbush, Brooklyn, N.Y.
June 15, 1907.

PREFACE

In this story of the dunes, the Hills and the Light, I have not attempted any character drawing, although on the easterly shore of Long Island there are many people who have retained, together with the plain old English names which they brought with them by way of Connecticut and Rhode Island, a simplicity and sturdiness of character not to be found elsewhere, I believe, so near the great cosmopolis, and which is worthy a place in song and story.

It has been my good fortune to mingle for many summers with these kindly folk, and particularly with a little group of gentle, rather bashful and silent men forming a crew, with their captain, of one of the United States Life Saving Stations.

It is my hope that this story, if it does nothing else, will in some small measure enhance the not-too-strong interest in which the poorly paid, obscurely enacted heroism of the men in this service is held by the general public.

They have not the advantages, like our soldiers and firemen, of dressy uniforms and frequent parade before us. They would be greatly embarrassed by anything like public homage; yet how beneficent is their service! The lonely isolation of the Government Houses; the long, ofttimes dangerous patrols every night from sunset to sunrise; their detachment from home and social ties,—all speak for the dignified bravery of these men along our coasts, and should call forth from us a grateful and appreciative tribute.

HARRIET T. COMSTOCK.

Flatbush, Brooklyn, N.Y.
June 15, 1907.

Illustrations

Janet of the Dunes

CHAPTER I

A sweeping curve of glistening beach. A full palpitating sea lying under the languid heat of a late June afternoon. The low, red Life Saving Station, with two small cottages huddling close to it in friendly fashion, as if conscious of the utter loneliness of sea and sand dune. And in front of one of these houses sat Cap'n Billy and his Janet!

They two seemed alone in the silent expanse of waste and water, but it in no wise disturbed them. Billy was industriously mending a huge fish net spread out upon the sands. Janet was planning a mode of attack, in order to preserve unto herself the very loneliness and isolation that surrounded them.

In Janet's hands Cap'n Billy knew himself a craven coward. Only by keeping his eyes away from the face near him could he hope for success in argument. And Cap'n Billy, with all the strength of his simple, honest nature, meant to succeed in the present course—if Janet would permit him!

It was yet to be discovered how beautiful was the girl, crouching upon the sands. So unlike was she to the young people of the Station that she repelled, rather than attracted, the common eye. Tall, slim, and sinewy was she, with the quick strength of a boy. The smooth, brown skin had the fineness and delicacy of exquisite bronze. Some attempt had been made earlier in the day to confine the splendid hair with strong strands of seaweed, but the breeze of the later morning had treated the matter contemptuously, and the shining waves were beautifully disordered. Out of all keeping with this brown ruggedness were Janet's eyes. Like colorless pools they lay protected by their dark fringes, until emotion moved them to tint and expression. Did the sky of Janet's day prove kind, what eyes could be as soft and blue as hers? Did storm threaten, a grayness brooded, a grayness quite capable of changing to ominous black.

Cap'n Billy, trained to watching for storms and danger, knew the signals, and now, for safety, lay low.

The eyes were mild and sun-filled, the face bewitchingly friendly; but when Janet took to wheedling, Billy hugged the shore.

"You don't really mean it, Cap'n, now, do you?"

"I do that!" muttered Billy, and he pulled the twine energetically.

"What, send your own Janet off to the mainland to stay—except when she runs back?" This last in a tone that might have moved a rock to pity.

"Yes, that, Janet; and ye mustn't come on too often, nuther."

"Oh! Cap'n, and just when we've got the blessed beach to ourselves! Mrs. Jo G. and her kind gone; only the crew and us! Why, Cap'n, this is life!"

"Now, Janet, 'tain't no use fur ye t' coax. Ye're goin' on seventeen, ain't ye?"

"Seventeen, Cap'n, and eleven months!"

"It's distractin' the way ye've shot up. Clar distractin'; an' I ain't been an' done my duty by ye, nuther." Billy yanked a strand of cord vigorously.

"Yes, you have, Cap'n," Janet's tone was dangerously soft; "I'm the very properest girl at the Station. Look at me, Cap'n Daddy!"

But Billy steeled himself, and rigidly attended to the net. "Well," he admitted, "ye're proper enough 'long some lines. I've taught ye t' conquer yer 'tarnal bad temper—"

"You've taught me to know its power, Cap'n Daddy," warned Janet with a glint of darkness in the laughing serenity of her gaze; "the temper is here just the same, and powerful bad, upon provocation!"

A smile moved the corners of Billy's humorous lips.

"An' the bedpost is here, too, Janet. Lordy! I can see ye now as I used t' tie ye up till the storm was over. What a 'tarnal little rascal ye war! The waves of tantrums rolled over ye, one by one, yer yells growin' less an' less; an' bime by ye called out 'tween squalls, 'Cap'n Daddy, it's most past!'" There was a mist over Billy's eyes. "Ye 'tarnal little specimint!" he added.

"But, Cap'n, dear!" Janet was growing more and more dangerous; "I've been so good. Just think how I've gone across the bay, to the Corners, to school. My! how educated I am! Storm or ice, I leave it to you, Daddy, did I ever complain?"

"Never, Janet. I've stood on the dock and watched yer sail comin' 'fore the gale, till it seemed like I would bust with fear. An' the way ye handled yer ice boat in the pursuit of knowledge-gettin' was simple miraculous! No, I ain't a-frettin' over yer larnin'-gettin'; it's the us'n' of the same as is stirrin' me now. With such edication as ye've got in spite of storm an' danger, ye ought to be shinin' over on the mainland 'mong the boarders!"

"Boarders!" sniffed Janet, tossing her ruddy mane; "boarders! Folks have gone crazy-mad over the city folks who have swooped down upon us, like a—a—hawk! Every house full of those raving lunatics going on about the views, and the—the artistic desolation! That's what those dirty, spotty looking things on the Hills call it. Cap'n, you just ought to see them going about in checked kitchen aprons, with daubs all over them—sunbonnets adangling on their heads, little wagons full of truck for painting pictures—and such pictures! Lorzy! if I lived in a place that looked like those—sketches, they call them—I'd—I'd go to sea, Cap'n Daddy—to sea!"

"But they be folks, Janet, an' it's a new life an' a chance, an' it ain't decint fur ye, with all yer good pints, t' be on the beach along with the crew, all alone!"

"Cap'n, I do believe you want to marry me off! get rid of me! oh, Daddy!" Janet plunged her head in her lap and was the picture of outraged maidenhood.

"'T ain't so! An' ye know it!" cried Billy. "But Mrs. Jo G., 'fore they sailed off, opened my eyes."

"Mrs. Jo G.!" snapped Janet, raising her head and flashing a look of resentment, "I thought so! What did she suggest—that I might come to her house and wait—wait, just think of it, Cap'n, wait upon those boarders?" She had suggested that, and something even worse, so Billy held his peace.

"It's simply outrageous the way our people are going on," the girl continued; "they are bent upon beggaring the city folks! Beggaring them, really! they have no consciences about the methods they take to—to rob them!"

"Janet, hold yer tiller close!"

"Oh! I know, Cap'n, but I do not want to take part in it all. I want to stay alone with you. Think of the patrols, Cap'n Daddy! I'll take them all with you. Sunset, midnight, and morning! You and I, Daddy, dear, under the stars, or through storm! Ah, I've ached for just this!"

Billy felt his determination growing weak.

"I've made 'rangements, Janet; Cap'n David he's goin' to board ye, an' ye can look about, an' if ye see an openin' t' get a chance t' better yerself—not in the marryin' way, but turnin' a penny—why it will all help, my girl, an' ye ought t' be havin' the chance with the city folks, what all the others is havin'."

"Oh! you sly old Cap'n Daddy! And do you realize that Cap'n Davy's Susan Jane isn't any joke to live with? You don't hear Davy tattling, but other folks are not so particular. Daddy, dear, I just cannot!" And with this the girl sprang into the net, rolled over and over and then lay ensnarled in the meshes at Billy's feet, her laughing eyes shining through the strands.

"Ye 'tarnal rascal!" cried Billy.

"You think you've caught me!" whined Janet, "you think you've got me! Oh! Cap'n, I'm afraid of the city folks!"

"Fraid!" sneered Billy. "My Janet 'fraid o' anythin'!"

"Yes, honest true! I do not want to be near them. I scent danger; not to them, but to me!"

Billy, bereft of his hands' occupation, looked out seaward. He was well-nigh distracted. Always his duty to this girl was uppermost in his simple mind; but his love and anxiety mingled with it. He no more understood her than he understood the elements that made havoc along the coast and necessitated his brave calling. He waged war with the sea to save his kind; and he struggled against the opposing forces in Janet that he in no wise understood, in order that she, as a girl among others, should have her rights.

Wild little creature as she had always been, Billy had used all the opportunities at hand to tame her into a similarity to the other children of the Station; and when he had failed, he gloried in the failure, and grew more distracted. Braving opposition in the girl and the dangers of Nature, Billy had forced the child across the bay to the school at the Corners. What there was to learn in that primitive institution, Janet had learned, and much more besides in ways of which Billy knew nothing.

For years the quaint seaside village had lain unnoticed in its droning course. Ships, now and again, had been driven upon the bar outside the dunes, and at such times the bravery of the quiet crew at the Government Station was sung in the distant city papers.

Now and again the superiority of the Point Quinton Light would be mentioned. But Captain David never knew of it. He tended and loved the Light with a fatherly interest. It was his life's trust, and David was a poet, an inarticulate poet, who spoke only through his shining Light. The government was his master. David thought upon the government in a personal way and served it reverently.

Then an artist had discovered Quinton-by-the-Sea. He took a painting of it back to the restless town, a painting full of color of dune, sea, bay, and hundred-toned Hills, with never a tree to stay the progress of the unending breezes. That was sufficient! The artist was great enough to touch the heart and Quinton was doomed to be famous! But it was only the beginning now. Every house in the village had opened its doors to the strangers; and every pocket yawned for possible dollars. Tents were pitched in artistic arrangement on the Hills, but the hotel was not yet. Managers waited to see if the fever would last. While they waited, the village folk reaped a breathtaking harvest. Mrs. Jo G., the only woman who had lived at the Life Saving Station in her own home, packed up and went "off," with baggage and children, to open the old farmhouse on the mainland and take boarders. Before going she left food for Billy to digest.

"This be Janet's chance," she said, standing with her hands on her hips, and her sunbonnet shading her fair, pinched face—nothing ever tanned Mrs. Jo G. "She can turn in an' help wait on table, or she kin take in washin'. It won't hurt her a mite. Washin' will have t' be done, an' the city folks will pay. Janet can make them fetch and carry their own duds. She can stand on her dignity; an' wash money is as good as any other."

Billy experienced a distinct chill at this last proposition. Why, he could hardly have told. During Janet's babyhood and early childhood he had assumed all household duties himself. Later he and Janet had shared them together over tub and table, but that Janet should wash for the boarders was harrowing!

"You think she's too good, Cap'n," sneered Mrs. Jo G., "but she ain't. She's wild, an' she ought t' get her bearin's. She ain't any different from my girls nor the others, though you act as if you thought so. You ain't as strong as you once was, Cap'n, an' come the time when you pass in your last check, who's goin' t' do for Janet? An' how's she goin' t' know how t' do fur herself? You ain't actin' fair by the girl. It's clear Providence, the way the city folks has fallen, as you might say, right in our open mouths. There'll be plenty of chances on the mainland fur Janet t' turn a penny, an' get an idea of self-support. But she ought t' be there, and not stuck here!"

Mrs. Jo G. had hardly turned the Point, after this epoch-making speech, before Billy was starting for the Light and the one friend of his heart.

"David," he explained, viewing his friend through a fog of thick, blue smoke, "I want that ye should take my girl! Once Janet is here, she'll be mighty spry 'bout gettin' in t' somethin'. I don't want her t' take t' washin' or servin' strangers, 'less she wants t', but when 'sperience an' money is floatin' loose, my girl ought t' be out with her net."

"Course!" nodded David; "an' Janet's a rare fisher fur these new waters."

"Ye'll keep yer eye on her, David—knowin' all ye do?"

The furrows deepened on Billy's brow. David took his pipe from his mouth.

"God's my witness! I will that!" he said.

Thus things stood while Janet, coiled in the meshes, lay laughing up at Billy.

"What do you think of your haul, Cap'n Billy Daddy?" The man sighed. "You wouldn't let those dreadful old sharks—they are sharks, Cap'n—you wouldn't let them hurt your poor little fish, now would you?" The rippling, girlish laugh jarred Billy's nerves. He must take a new tack.

"See here, Janet, do ye mind this? Ye ain't jes' my child—Lord knows ye ain't—yer hers!"

"Hers?"

"Yes."

"Ah! you mean my mother." The net lay quite still. Having no memory of the mother, Janet was not deeply impressed. "I know, Cap'n; when you are in a difficulty you always bring—'her'—in,—what she would like, and what she wouldn't. It's my belief, Cap'n, she'd have done and thought exactly as we told her to."

"'T ain't so, nuther! She had heaps of common sense, an' as she got near port, she saw turrible clear, an' she talked considerable 'bout larnin', an' how it could steer yer craft better than anythin' else; an' she 'lowed if ye was gal or lad, after ye got larnin', she wanted ye should go out int' the world an' test it. She wasn't over sot 'bout the Station. She'd visited other places."

Janet sat up, and idly draped the net about her.

"I suppose if my mother had lived," she said, "I would have listened to her—some. But, Cap'n Daddy, I reckon she would have gone off with me. Like as not we would have taken boarders, but, don't you see, Cap'n, I would have had her?"

"True; an' it's that what's held my hand many's the time. Yer not havin' her has crippled us both. But a summer on the mainland ain't a-goin' t' swamp us, Janet. With the Comrade tied to David's wharf, an' me here, what's goin' t' happen to a—a girl like you?"

Janet looked across the summer sea.

"What? Sure enough, Cap'n Daddy, just what? And I ought to be earning my keep."

"I'm goin' t' set ye up with some gal fixin's what I've saved fur ye. Yer mother's things! Ye ain't never seen them. S'pose we take a look now. A summer, with runnin's over t' the Station, will be real interestin', Janet. An' ye must tell me everythin'. There ain't no reason why ye shouldn't sail over every little while, but I do hope ye'll make yerself useful somehow. It will help bime by. An' I'm gettin' stiff." He arose awkwardly and strode toward the tiny house. Janet followed, trailing her fish net robe and humming lightly.

The house was composed of three small rooms with a lean-to, where of late years Billy had slept. From the middle room, which was the living room, a ladder, set against the wall, led to the loft overhead. The man slowly climbed upward, and Janet went after.

The space above was hardly high enough for an upright position, so man and girl sat down upon the floor, and it happened that a locked chest stood between them.

"Janet, ye ain't never seen these things, have ye?"

"No, Cap'n Billy." The mocking laugh was gone from the face.

"Ye ain't got no sense of curiosity 'bout anythin', Janet—not even yer mother. Most girls would have asked questions."

This seemed like a rebuke, and Janet kept silent.

"Ain't ye got no curious feelin' 'bout yer mother?"

"Cap'n Billy, you haven't ever let me miss anything in all my life. I s'pose that's why I haven't asked. I never knew her, did I, Cap'n Billy? You made up for everything."

This unnerved Billy.

"That's logic," he nodded, "an' it's good-heartedness, as well; but, Janet, I'm goin' to tell ye somewhat of yer mother." He took a key from his pocket, unlocked the chest and raised the lid.

"Them things is hers!" he said reverently. "Little frocks—" Three he laid out upon the floor. Cheap, rather gaudy they were, but of cut and fashion unknown to the beach-bred girl. "And little under-thin's, an' a hat, an' sacque; shoes—just look at them, Janet! Little feet they covered, but such willin' little feet, always a-trottin' 'bout till the very last, so turrible afraid they wouldn't be grateful enough. Lord! but that was what she said." The pitiful store of woman's clothing lay near Janet, but she made no motion to touch it.

"And this is her!" Captain Billy took a photograph from the bottom of the chest, unwrapped it from its covering of tissue paper, and handed it to the quiet girl opposite. "This is her, an' as like as life! The same little hat on, what she set such store by! I ain't had the heart t' show ye this before." Janet seized the card eagerly. The light from a small window in the roof fell full upon it.

"Oh!" she breathed, "she was—why, Cap'n Billy, she was more than pretty! I think I should have felt her more if I had seen this."

"Maybe, Janet."

"Am—am I like her?"

"Like as not, if ye was whiter an' spindlin'er, there'd be a likeness." An uneasiness struggled in Billy's inner consciousness as he viewed the girl. "Ye're more wild-like," he added.

"I wish I had asked a lot about her," Janet whispered, and there was a mist in her eyes; "I have been careless just because I've been happy. It seems as if we had sort of pushed her away, and kept her still."

"Well, it's her turn t' speak now, girl, an' that's what I've been steerin' round t'. Ye're hers an'—"

"And yours, Cap'n Billy, even if you have taught me to say Captain, instead of Father."

"It was her word for me, child, an' ye added Daddy of yer own will. 'My Cap'n,' she use t' say. It sounded awful soothin'; an' her so grateful 'bout nothin'! Sho! An' she wanted ye to be a help long o' me. Them was her words. An' Lordy! child, I'm willin' t' work an' share with ye—but savin' is pretty hard when there ain't nothin' much t' save from, an' if this summer-boardin' business is goin' t' open up a chance fur ye, it ain't cause I want help, but she'd like ye t' have more things. Don't ye see? An' I jest know ye'll get yer innin's on the mainland."

"I have been a selfish girl!" Janet murmured, holding the photograph closer, "a human crab; just clinging and gripping you. Then running wild and fighting against you when you wanted me to learn to be useful! I think, Cap'n Billy, if you had shown me—my mother, and talked more of her—maybe it would have been different. Maybe not,"—with a soft sigh,—"I reckon every one has to be ready for seeing. I don't just know how to—how to get my share from those—those boarders. But I'll find a way! I mean to be helpful, Cap'n. I can't bring myself to wait on them. Mrs. Jo G. doesn't seem to mind that, but I do. And I hate to see them eat—in crowds. But I'll find something to do. Put the clothes in the carpet-bag, Cap'n Billy Daddy; I may not wear them over there, but I'd like to have them. May I take the picture?"

"Yes, only be powerful careful o' it. An' don't show it round. Somehow she seems to belong to nobody but jest us two."

CHAPTER II

Captain David began to climb the long flight of iron stairs. It was his custom to start early, in order that he might stop upon each landing and take a view of the land and water on his way up. As David got higher and higher, his spirits rose in proportion. Below were duty and care; aloft was the Light, that was his pride and glory, and the freedom of solitude and silence!

When David began his climb—because it was the manner of the man to face life with a song upon his lips—he hummed softly:

"I would not live alway,
No, welcome the tomb."

He paused on the first landing and took in the satisfying prospect of his garden, edged around by summer flowers and showing a thrifty collection of needful vegetables.

"And only man is vile!" panted David, starting upward, and changing his song. By the time the third landing was reached care and anxiety were about forgotten and the outlook upon the rippling bay was inspiring.

"And we put three shots in the lobster pots,
Three cheers for the witches three"

Davy remembered only snatches of this song, but its hilarious tunefulness appealed to his state of feeling on the third landing. David chuckled, gurgled, and puffingly mounted higher.

"Looks like it might be a good crab season," he muttered, "an' I hope t' gum! the city folks won't trifle with the isters out o' season.

'Brightly gleams our Father's mercy,
From His lighthouse evermore;
But to us—'"

puff, pant, groan!

"'He gives the keepin' of the lights alon' the shore!'" David had reached the Light! He always timed himself to the moment. When the sun dropped behind the Hills, David's Light took possession of the coming night!

He stepped inside the huge lamp, rubbed an imaginary spot off the glistening glass, turned up the wick and touched it with the ready match. Then he came forth and eyed the westering sun. That monarch, riding through the longest day of the year, was reluctant to give up his power; but David was patient. With hand upon the cloth covering he bided his time. It was a splendid sunset. Beyond the Hills the clouds were orange-red and seemed to part in order that the round sun should have a wide course for his royal exit. The shadows were coming up out of the sea. David felt, rather than saw, the purpling light stealing behind him, but he had, for the present, to do only with the day.

"There was glory over all the land," quoted the man, "a flood of glory." Then the sun was gone! On the instant the covering was snatched away, and David's Light shone cheerily in the glory that at first obscured it.

"Your turn will come!" comforted the keeper as if to a friend, "they'll bless ye, come darkness!"

With that he stepped out upon the narrow balcony surrounding the tower, to "freshen up."

From that point the dunes, dividing the ocean and the bay, seemed but weak barriers. The sea rolled nearer and nearer.

"Thus far and no farther," whispered David reverently; "the Lord don't need anythin' bigger than that strip o' sand to make His waters obey His will. No mountains could be safer than them dunes when once the Lord has set the limit. That looks like the Comrade off beyond the P'int!" he went on; "I'll take my beef without cabbage, if that ain't Janet a-makin' for the Light, an' as late as this, too! Billy's told her 'bout the change, an' she wouldn't wait, once she was convinced. She might have stayed with Billy till mornin', the impatient little cuss."

The sailboat was scudding before the ocean breeze. Its white wing was the only one upon the bay, and David watched it with a new interest.

"Comin' over t' make her fortune," he muttered, "comin' over t' help fleece the boarders! By gum! I wonder, knowin' what Billy knows, an' havin' the handlin' of a craft like Janet, he didn't hold the sheet rope pretty snug as he headed her int' this harbor."

The boat made the landing without a jar. The girl sprang out, secured the Comrade, then shouldered a carpet-bag, boy-fashion, and came up the winding path toward the lighthouse. David watched her, bending over the railing, until she passed within; then he straightened himself and waited.

The purple gloaming came; the Light took on courage and dignity; the stars shone timidly as if apologizing for appearing where really their little glow was not needed. Then softly:

"Cap'n David, are you on the balcony?"

"Who be ye comin' on the government property without permission?" growled David. Janet came out of the narrow doorway and flung her arms around the keeper's neck.

"Cap'n Davy, I've come off to be adopted! I had to stop downstairs to make my room ready and pay Susan Jane two weeks in advance, but I've got business with you now. Bring out a couple of chairs, Cap'n, this is going to be a long watch."

David paused as he went upon the errand.

"The money is what sticks, Janet. Money atween me an' Billy is a ticklish matter. Don't lay it up agin Susan Jane, girl, the conniverin' in money ways an' the Holy Book is all that Susan Jane has, since she was struck."

"It's all right, Cap'n David, if it were only my money! And it soon will be, Davy; it soon will be. I've just waked up to the fact that I ought to be helping along, instead of hanging on Cap'n Billy. Seventeen, and only just waking up! I've come over to the gold mine, Davy, and I'm going to do some digging for myself."

David sighed and laughed together; it was a rare combination, and one for which he was noted. Presently he came out with the chairs. The two put their backs to the Light. David took out his pipe, and Janet, bracing her feet against the railing and clasping her hands behind her head, looked up at the stars. Next to Captain Billy, this man beside her was her truest friend.

"Goin' t' help wait at some table?" asked David between long, heartsome puffs.

"Nope."

"Maybe, washin'?"

"Nope."

"Anythin' in mind, special?"

"Yep."

"What?"

"I'm going up to the Hills and learn to paint pictures!"

"By gum!"

"Yes. I can at least see things as they are. All I shall have to do is to learn to handle the brushes and mix the paint."

"By gum!"

"And, Cap'n David, I know what you all think. You think me a useless kind of girl, willing enough to hang on Cap'n Billy and take all he can give. And I know that you think him soft and, maybe, silly, because he hasn't been sterner with me. But you're all wrong! Cap'n Daddy and I haven't been wasting our time. We've got awfully close to each other while we've lived alone and had only ourselves. I've been thinking a long time of how I could help him best. I didn't want to come over and—and—what shall I say?—well, plunder the city folks. That's what every one is doing. Sometimes I'm sorry for them, the city folks. It seems like we ought to treat them more as visitors, than as ships that have been tossed up."

"Lord!" spluttered David through his smoke; "they know how t' look after themselves."

"Yes, and when I think of that, I'm afraid of them. They'll get something out of us for all the money they spend. And, Davy, I don't want them to get it out of me!"

"Get it out of you!" David struck his pipe on the railing and the sparks fell into the night like a shower of stars. Janet nodded her head.

"Yes, get it out of me! All the same if I'm going to help make my living, this seems the only way, so I'm going in with the rest. But I want to choose my own path. Davy, did you ever see my mother? Of course you did! She was pretty, but I'm a lot better looking. Cap'n Billy's been telling me about her."

"Tellin' ye about her, all?" David asked faintly.

"Oh! I reckon not all; he was choking while he talked, and I hated to ask him particulars. How old was I when she died, Cap'n Davy?"

"Ye warn't no age at all, child; as yer little skiff hove int' sight, hers set sail. Ye didn't any more than hail each other in passin'."

"Oh! tell me more, Davy."

"'Twas an awful night ye chose, Janet. Wind off sea, an' howlin' like mad. Sleet an' rain minglin', an' porridge ice slammin' ont' shore! Billy had the midnight patrol, an' fore he started out, he 'ranged that we should keep one eye out toward his cottage,—I happened t' be on that night,—an' if we saw a light in the lean-to winder, I was t' rouse Mrs. Jo G. 'Long 'bout two, I saw the light, an' I made tracks for Mrs. Jo G.'s. The wind almost knocked us down as we set out for Billy's. I waited in the lean-to, an' Mrs. Jo G. she went int' the bedroom."

"Go on, Cap'n Davy. I wish I had known always about Mrs. Jo G. She didn't mind the storm? Somehow I never thought of her like that."

"'Twas only human, Janet, her an' yer ma was the only females at the Station. 'Long 'bout four, Billy came a-staggerin' in. He had seen the light shinin' in the winder. He was coated over with ice, ice hangin' to his beard an' lashes, but Lord, how his eyes was glitterin'! I couldn't say a blessed thin'. Gum! there wasn't a thing t' say. I just gripped him like a looney, an' he gripped me, an' thar we stood a-starin' an' a-staring'! 'Why don't ye go in?' I asked."

"And why didn't he?" Janet was struggling with an inclination to cry, "why didn't he?" David, fearing he had ventured upon dangerous ground, muttered:

"He said he couldn't! Them was his own words. Billy was always queer. Just then Mrs. Jo G. came int' the living room. She had you—we didn't know it then, fur ye was just a round bundle—in her arms. Mrs. Jo G. always speaks to the p'int when she does speak," Davy continued, "an' all she said was, 'This is all that's left, Cap'n Billy—the mother's gone!'"

"Oh! my Cap'n!" murmured Janet; "and only to-night I have heard this!"

"Now don't take on, Janet!" David clumsily stroked the pretty head that had found a resting place upon the iron railing. "It was because Billy hated any takin' on that he kept mum. Him an' me an' Mrs. Jo G. we have always acted as if nothin' unusual had happened. Ye had a stormy voyage, child, an' Billy wanted that ye should have calm, while he was in control."

"Oh! Cap'n Billy, my poor old Daddy! And I've been a wild, uncaring girl, David. Never taking hold like the others! Just following Daddy about, and being a burden! And to think it was—it was boarders that aroused me! Oh! Davy, it makes me sick."

"Now see here, Janet!" David got up and walked twice around the little gallery. "I ain't a-sayin' but what ye ought t' be helpin' yerself an' takin' anxiety off o' Billy: but I do say that it ain't goin' t' ease Billy any, if ye go gallivantin' off to the Hills with any fool notion that good looks is goin' t' help ye."

"They always help, Cap'n David, always!" Janet's assertion came through a muffled sob. "You mustn't think I care for my looks myself. I'd just as soon be as peaked and blue-white as Mrs. Jo G.'s Maud, but I know pretty looks are just so much to the good—"

"Or bad!" broke in David.

"Well, have it that way. But it is according to how you use them. I'm going to use my good looks wisely!"

"By gum!" muttered David. This was his escape valve. When other words failed, "by gum" eased the tension. "Ye ain't much on looks, Janet, when ye come to that," he said presently. "Ye ain't tidy, nor tasty; ye ain't a likely promise fur what a handy woman ought t' be. Yer powerful breezy an' uncertain, an' yer unlike what folks is use t'."

"Davy!" Janet came in front of him and the light fell full upon her. "Davy, you just listen and see how wise I am! Do you know why the city folks have come to Quinton? We never, at least not many of us, saw anything very splendid about the Hills, the dunes and the bay, now did we?"

"The fact is, we didn't!"

"Well, these people are wild about them because they are unlike the common things they are used to. I am like Quinton, Davy; I know it way down in my heart. You won't catch me fixing up like city folks and looking queer enough to turn you dizzy. Quinton and I are going to be true to ourselves, Davy, and you'll soon see if my looks do not help!"

"By gum!" sighed David; and remembering his vow to Billy to watch over this girl, he sighed again and ordered her below in no very gentle voice.

CHAPTER III

Janet was aroused the next morning by hearing Captain David creaking across the floor of the living room with his daily burden in his arms. The girl was neither deep asleep nor wide awake. She was never uncertain of her whereabouts or identity, once she had crossed the border land.

The early sun was creeping into the east window of her tiny room on one side of the living room of the lighthouse; on the opposite side was Captain David's sleeping apartment, into which he carried his helpless wife every evening before he had to go up aloft, and out of which he bore her to the chintz covered rocker, every morning after he had come below.

For ten long years David had known this sorrow; and he knew that it was to be his until Death spake the final word.

"It seems to me, David," the querulous voice was saying, "that the sun, up your way, rose mighty late to-day."

"There, there, Susan Jane, 'tis the same old sun as rises an' sets fur all. Had a bad night, Susan Jane?"

"Bad night! that shows what sympathy you have for me, David. All my nights are bad. Bad as bad can be, unless they be worse!"

"Well, Susan Jane, let's hope that a bad night argers a good day. There! are ye fixed, reasonably comfortable? P'r'aps the pillers ought' be a mite higher. How's that? An' now, if you want t' read a bit I'll fix the brekfus. I sot some biscuits overnight."

"Give me the Bible, David, an' my money box! There, open t' the same old chapter. Thank the Lord, that chapter is all on one page! Since He thought wise to take the usefulness from my members, I'm glad He made folks print my favorite chapter so there's no need of turnin' over. Land knows, who'd ever think of waitin' on me!"

"Come now, Susan Jane, I'm always willin', when I ain't on government duty."

"Government duty or sleep! Men is all alike. How would you feel if you was stricken like me?"

"Powerful bad, Susan Jane, powerful bad. Ye bear yer lot uncommon patient, Susan Jane; I'm never overlookin' that. But if ye put yer mind to it, wife, ye'll see that if I do my duty, I must sleep—some. Howsomever, Mark Tapkins will have his turn to-night, same as usual; an' I can set with ye this evenin'. The government is powerful generous, Susan Jane, t' give this every other night shift."

"Generous, umph! There, David, do get the meal. I guess if you had laid awake all night, you'd have considerable cravin' in yer stomach fur victuals. I've a real sinkin'."

"Sho! I must get a double wriggle on, Susan Jane." David stumbled over a stool on his way to the stove; he was dizzy from sleepiness, and he, too, had a sensation of sinking.

"Sho! I be gettin' monstrous awkward!" he muttered apologetically; "I hope I ain't waked Janet!"

"S'pose you had!" snapped his wife; "you think that more important than my nerves? I don't more'n half like Janet comin' here. If it hadn't been fur me, I know you'd taken her fur nothin'! No matter if I do have t' go t' the poorhouse on account of yer shiftlessness. I, stricken an' helpless! She can come here fur nothin'! I jest know, David, that it would be a real release fur a great, strong man like you to be rid of a poor stricken wife; but I guess you'll have to bide the Lord's will whether you want t' or no!"

At this point David spilled a kettle of water he was bearing from the pump, outside the door, to the range.

"By gum! Susan Jane," he said cheerily, "I guess no one but you could put up with a blunderin' old feller like me. Ye better reconsider an' stay t' see the game out. Two eggs, this mornin', wife, or one?"

"Two, David! You didn't think t' scrimp me, did you? If one egg has got t' be given, you'd better begin on yourself, or Janet!"

"Come, come, Susan Jane; there is two apiece, an' six fur company!"

"Company! David, have you had the heartlessness t' invite company here without askin' me?"

"Lord! Susan Jane, can't ye take a joke? I only meant eggs is plenty. The draught's good this mornin'; that's a sign of clear weather. The biscuits is riz fit t' kill, Susan, I never had better luck. That comes of havin' a handy wife t' train ye."

"I'm glad you can see some good in me, David!" Susan Jane was sniffling. "I think Janet is downright lazy an' triflin'. Lyin' in bed when a struck woman like me can have ambition enough to be up an' doin'."

"You're one in a hundred, Susan Jane, but then it ain't more'n fair t' state that Janet's a boarder, 'cordin' t' yer own placin'."

"Oh! that's right. Blame me fur miserliness, an' excuse her fur slackness! She's perfict: I'm the sinner!"

"Now, Susan Jane!"

"Oh! I can see through a person if he ain't too dazzlin'!" Susan Jane drank from the cup of coffee that David held to her lips. "I s'pose you'd like t' take a tray int' her, David?"

"Now, Susan Jane, don't be so amusin'! It's wonderful how ye keep yer spirits."

"Spirits! David, I s'pose you're speakin' sarcastic. You think my mind ain't right. You're treatin' me like a child!" The woman turned from the cup, weeping audibly.

Janet at this point noiselessly arose and made a hurried toilet. Sickness, physical weakness of any kind, was repulsive to the girl of perfect health and outdoor nature; but one thing she realized. While she stayed at the lighthouse she must share David's burden. Her sense of loyalty to David made this imperative. She must help him how and when she could; and she must be as silent as he in regard to it.

"Good morning!" she cried presently, going into the living room. "Here, Cap'n David, take your place at the table. I'll do the rest. You won't mind, Susan Jane, will you, if I boss a little? I'm so used to bossing my Cap'n Billy."

"'T ain't decent fur a great girl like you, Janet, t' call Billy in that fashion. Father seems good enough for the other girls around here."

"I like my way better;" Janet smiled over the plate of biscuits she was bearing from the range. "I'm saucy and bossy, Susan Jane, but I've good points, too. Here, I'll spread your biscuits and fix your eggs. David, you finish your breakfast and go to bed. I'll feed Susan, and tidy up."

David cast a grateful look at her and Susan Jane turned to her breakfast with an appetite that was one of the few pleasures left to her stricken existence.

All that morning, to the accompaniment of Susan Jane's complaints, praise of herself, and disapproval of Janet's appearance and manners, the girl did the housework, prepared the midday meal, and thought her busy thoughts. At twelve o'clock, David issued forth from the bedroom. He was heavy-eyed from sleep and dishevelled as to looks.

"By gum!" he exclaimed, going out to Janet on the porch; "I s'pose ye wanted t' go up t' the Hills this mornin', an' peddle yer good looks. I clean forgot yer ambitions, I was that sodden with weariness."

"No, Davy, it's all right. I want to get my breath first. I'm going to Bluff Head this afternoon. I may not have many more chances. I hear Bluff Head is going to be opened, too."

"Yes: Mr. Devant sent word down to Eliza Jane Smith t' have the place ready, bidin' the time he might come. But seems like I heard that Eliza Jane ain't goin' t'-day. She's takin' washin' in fur the boarders an' makin' money out of it. Eliza Jane'll get top lofty if she finds she ain't naturally dependent on James B. It don't do fur some women t' know their wuth."

Janet laughed.

"It helps others!" she answered lightly.

When the dinner dishes were disposed of, Janet took her sunbonnet and started off for Bluff Head. The day was hot and the road dusty. The sunbonnet, as a feminine requisite of old Quinton, was desirable; but Janet swung hers from her arm, thereby satisfying Mrs. Grundy's demands and not interfering with her own rights. At one o'clock, in the Quinton of that day, the city boarders were eating en masse, and the Quintonites, in various capacities, were serving them; so the girl on the highway had the place to herself. The lighthouse rose red and gleaming from Cap'n David's garden spot; the bay, blue and rippling, spread in and out of its tiny sub-bays where the land stretched like five fingers of a hand, with the blue water in between. To the west lay the Hills in their "artistic desolation," and to the north of them The Bluff, with Mr. Devant's long-closed house gracing the summit. It mattered little to Janet whether Eliza Jane Smith was in command of Bluff Head or not. The past would never have been as sweet as Janet knew it, had she depended upon Eliza Jane's movements to govern her ingress and egress to the place.

Going rapidly along, the girl presently came to the grounds of the big house. Years ago attempts at landscape gardening had been indulged in, while the master of the place fancied to pass his summers there, but years of recent neglect had all but obliterated the marks of culture. Wildness was over all, but it was the wildness of former refinement.

Past the sundial ran the girl, and around to the rear of the house. Then she burrowed under a dense rosebush and pushed her way through a basement window, almost hidden by the undergrowth, the sash of which swung inward at the familiar pressure.

It was but a moment's work to scramble through, and then run up the dark, disused stairway. The place had a mouldy smell, but it was neat and orderly, and the weekly airings, given by Eliza Jane, saved it from dampness. The silence and absence of human nearness might well have daunted one; but Janet, the only living thing, apparently, in the deserted house, felt no qualms. She went directly to the library: there was little else of interest in the place to her. For years this spot had been her secret treasure nook. When, as a little child, she had entered the place with Eliza Jane, it was not as other children, but with an inborn yearning to see and touch those wonderful rows of books. She was permitted to dust those she could reach, and her touch was reverent and gentle. The pictures had at first fascinated her; later, the district school teaching had given her power to understand the words; then had dawned the new heaven and the new earth. Like a miser with his gold, she guarded her joy. She discovered the unfastened window and timed her visits when she was sure of privacy; and so she had trod, undirected and like the wild creature she was, the paths of literature.

The Devant library, gathered through generations, was stored in the country house that had originally been built as a family home. But the sons of the race were rovers and often years would slip by without a personal inspection. James B. and Eliza Jane were the guardians, and there was little need of a master's anxiety while those two were in command.

Janet glanced about the library and her face grew radiant. She inhaled long breaths. The odor of the leather and old paper thrilled her. She mounted the little steps and took a book, with unerring touch, from the fifth shelf, then she sprang lightly to the floor and went with her prize to the shelter of a deep bay-window. Softly she raised the sash and drew in the sweetness of the June day.

"It's good!" she murmured; "heavenly good!" Then she nestled among the cushions on the window seat, and, shielded by the heavy curtains from the emptiness of the room, she entered her paradise.

The key that opened the gateway was a rare edition of Shakespeare; the play, "Romeo and Juliet." A tiny scrap of paper marked the place of the last reading. The girl's eyes, blue now as the summer sky, fell upon the words of delight, and instantly Quinton was forgotten, Quinton, and all its familiar worries and small pleasures. Janet of the Dunes was Juliet of Italy.

A crunching of gravel upon the driveway startled the girl cruelly. "I believe I have a key, Saxton," said a deep, firm voice; "yes: here it is, I can let myself in. Drive back to the station and wait for the baggage train. See that everything is carefully loaded on the wagon from the livery. You can get me a bite when you return. Stop at the Corners and bring back enough food for to-night; to-morrow we'll set up housekeeping. I'll make myself comfortable. And oh! Saxton!"

"Yes, sir."

"Stop at the post office and ask for mail."

Janet's blood rose hotly.

"Caught!" she whispered; then she smiled feebly. She could not see the speaker; he was at the front of the house. She heard the wheels outside turn and go rapidly away. A grating of the lock of the long unopened front door sounded next: then a rapid stride brought the stranger to the library!

"Rather a quiet welcome home!" The man, believing himself alone, spoke aloud and laughed unconcernedly.

"There's always a feeling of companionship in books. Everything looks in good condition." He gave a comprehensive glance around the room.

This was no stranger, but the master of Bluff Head!

When Janet was six she had last seen this man, and he had changed less since then than had she. From her shelter she eyed him as he flung travelling coat, hat, and dress-suit case upon a divan and himself in a deep leather chair. He was tall, handsome, and elegant. The iron gray head pressing the chair-back was one to draw the second glance from a stranger as a matter of course. The clear, blue-gray eyes took in the walls lined with books. The white hands, clasped in front of the broad chest, showed nerve force and strength.

Janet, trapped and desperate, first contemplated a leap from the open window, but that method of exit was discarded upon second thought. It would definitely end all further expectation of reaching the world of books! While there was hope in other directions, she must choose more sanely. She ventured a cough. So slight a sound in that silence might well have shaken the strongest nerves. The man in the chair, however, did not move, but his eyes fell instantly upon the alcove. The parted curtains, now that the girl raised herself forward, gave a full view of the slight form and vivid face. The calm eyes from the chair wavered an instant and the nostrils twitched; then the man laughed carelessly.

"Won't you come out and be friendly?" he said.

"Thank you." Janet came forth, book in hand, with eyes full of amusement. There was an awkward pause while the man gazed steadily at her. Then Janet spoke.

"I, I suppose you've come now, to stay?" It sounded brusque and unmannerly, but it was the only remark that occurred to her.

"I had thought of making rather a stay,"—the eyes rested upon the bright face,—"however, possession is nine-tenths of the law. If you say the word I'll skedaddle!"

"Oh!" panted Janet, "I pray you pardon me!" The sentence sounded Shakespearean in the gathering confusion. "I only thought—do you not see? I suppose you are Mr. Devant and I knew you would end—end—"

"What, pray? I'm not uncompromisingly final. I've been known to let things run on."

"Why, you see, I've been in the habit for years of crawling in your cellar window, coming up here and—reading your books! I began it when I was a very little girl; it's come to be a kind of habit."

The man laughed with keen relish.

"You quite flatter me, Miss—Miss—?" he paused.

"Oh! Janet. Janet of the Dunes, you know, Cap'n Billy's Janet. You may not remember me, but I saw you once, years and years ago. I was at the Light, David's Light; you came visiting there. I called you Mr. Government!"

"Miss Janet, do take a seat! Permit me!" He arose and with courtly grace placed a chair for his companion. "I recall you perfectly. The mistake you made in my name came to be a joke and byword after I went home. You saw me snooping around the Light and thought I was the Government, inspecting Captain David's domain. It all comes to me quite clearly. I remember, you put your back against a certain closet and intimated in no doubtful language that it was private property. You were a bewitching small child, Miss Janet, if you will pardon an old man's freedom of speech. I am delighted to renew our acquaintance." Janet flushed. "I presume, counting upon your memory of my inspection of the lighthouse, you felt free to inspect my house. Are the books to your taste, Miss Janet?"

"They have been my greatest joy in all these years." A serious tone and a sudden moisture of the blue eyes touched the man. He spoke in a sincerer manner, looking more sharply at the glowing face.

"You are a book-lover by nature, I see."

"Yes, I never see a book but I feel as I do when I stand by the sea on a foggy morning. I can see nothing, but I know that everything lies hidden in the fog. I wonder what kind of a day lies there, and what the day bears. So it is with a book, I open the covers,—and the fog slowly melts away!"

"Yes." A smell of the sea stole into the open window and the man took a long breath. "You have read wisely, I hope?" he said.

"I began with the pictures. Then I spelled out the words in the books on the bottom shelf; I've worked my way up. I'm on the fifth shelf by the door now. I do not seem to be able to get any further than this—" She passed the book to him. "I've been at this book three whole months! I sort of hoped—please forgive me, but I sort of hoped—I might get to the sixth shelf before you came back!"

"Shakespeare!" mused the master of Bluff Head, "and he's held you three months, Miss Janet, after you've waded through heaven only knows what?"

"Yes: he makes me forget everything. I cannot explain, only he sings to me, and he talks to me, and he makes me a hundred people all in one."

"Miss Janet, heaven forbid! that a mere master of Bluff Head should close the gates to this Genius' Eden to such a lover as you! Allow me." He handed out the key that had given him entrance to his home. "Permit me to give you royal freedom to what, surely, is more yours than mine. A cellar window has been honored enough; the doorway is not wide enough for so true a worshipper."

"I do not understand you! I fear you are laughing at me."

"Heaven save us! No, my child, I mean simply this. Come at your own sweet will and read to your heart's content. If you will graciously permit me, I most gladly will wander with you through these—" He waved his hand toward the shelves. "I may be able to point out some new pleasure-paths; I am certain you can make me love old ones better. If I am absent from Bluff Head, I will leave orders that you are to be undisturbed while you honor this room! I trust my old friend of the Light is well?"

"Yes. But, oh! how can I thank you?"

"By returning, my dear child! There I hear Saxton, how the time has flown!" He arose and Janet slipped to her feet, and passed from the room. Devant called after her.

"Good bye, for the present, Janet of the Dunes!" For a moment the girl paused.

"Good bye, Mr. Government!" she replied, and was gone, leaving a trailing ripple of laughter as a memory of the strange meeting.

CHAPTER IV

"Janet, where you goin'?"

"Over to the Hills, Susan Jane."

"Everythin' rid up?"

"Everything."

"I never felt my powerlessness so much as I have since you come."

"I'm sorry, Susan Jane. It must be hard to see others active, if one is tied as you are. Try not to look at me."

"Not look at you? Huh! Gals need watchin'. I know it would suit more'n you, like as not, if I'd been struck blind as well as helpless. But I ain't blind. I see all that's goin', an' more, too!" Janet sighed. The atmosphere of the Light, below stairs, was depressing.

"What's Mark Tapkins hangin' round fur?"

"It was his turn at the Light last night, Susan Jane."

"Land sake! I know that. Didn't I hear David snorin' fit t' bust, till mornin'? But Mark didn't use t' lap his turn clear on t' the next forenoon. Janet, do you know what I think?"

"No, Susan Jane."

"I think Mark Tapkins is shinin' up t' you!"

"Do you, Susan Jane?" Janet was struggling with her hair.

"Yes, I do. An' I feel it's my place t' tell you that it ain't a bad chance fur you. Mark's a steady, slow fellow, but he ain't lackin'. You're dreadful giddy an' don't take t' house ways. Mark's father is the best housekeeper I know on. He's sort of daft; but all the sense he has left is gone t' cookin' an' managin' a house. He ain't old an' the soft-headed kind last longer than keener folks: it would fit int' your ways right proper. Mrs. Jo G.'s girl couldn't stand it. She is so brisk an' contrivin', an' Mrs. Jo G., being right here on hand, has hopes of workin' Maud Grace off on some boarder; but you ain't got nobody t' pilot you, Janet, an' you're queer an' unlikely, 'cept in looks, an' some doubts the worth of them! As long as Mark is leanin' toward you, I think it my duty to head you toward him."

"Thank you, Susan Jane, but I'll pilot myself, please." The girl's face showed an angry flush. "Shall I open the Bible for you before I go?"

"Yes; you know the place?"

"It falls open to the page, Susan Jane."

"Thank you. An' please put the money box where I can see it. Was it one or two weeks you paid fur?"

"Two, Susan Jane. Now I must be off. Tell David not to wait dinner."

"Wait dinner!" sniffed Susan Jane; "well, listen t' them airs! Wait dinner! I'd like t' see any one, boarder or saucy jade, as would make me wait dinner!" Janet had fled before the rising storm.

"There she goes, sails set an' full rigged, an' Mark Tapkins followin' on ahind like a little, lopsided tug after an ocean steamer!"

Poor helpless Susan Jane looked after the two, all her irritable, action-checked misery breaking through her eyes.

"Lord!" she moaned, "I don't want t' live; an' yet fur all I know, this may be better'n nothin'! I don't want t' be nothin'! Jest lookin' on is better than that!"

Janet, striding along the wood-path beyond the Light, heard the shambling steps behind her. She turned and saw Mark. He was tall and lank. He leaned forward from the shoulders loosely, and his face had the patient, dull expression of a faithful, but none too fine breed, dog.

"Where are you going, Mark?" The girl turned.

"'Long o' you, Janet. I've—I've got t' say somethin'!"

"Oh! please don't, Mark. I've been hearing things since sun-up, and you've been in the Light all night. You are in no condition to say things."

"Yes: I be, too, Janet. I always feel keener after a night awake. Since I've sot up in the Light I've been considerable spryer, or maybe it's you!"

Janet heaved a sigh. "Mark," she pleaded, "there isn't an earthly thing you can say that I want to hear this morning. I'm going to the Hills on business, and I must be as calm as I can!"

"It's them Hills, as has made me come t' the p'int. Them Hills is bristlin' with city folks, men an' women! I've heard what you're aimin' at. Goin' up t' the Hills t' get a job of some sort! Yer innercint, an' yer a gal, Janet, an' I'm a man an' I've spent six months in the city an' I know its ways, an' I know men! Yer too good lookin', Janet, t' mix up with what's on the Hills."

The mixture of foolishness and wisdom, the effort to protect in man-fashion what was weak, moved Janet strangely.

"Mark," she faltered, "you need not be afraid. I know I do not understand, and that helps. If I thought I did, there might be danger. It's just the same as if I were James B. going up there to peddle—well—clams! You need not fear a bit more for me than for him."

Mark gazed stupidly at the glowing face.

"I guess I must love you!" he said at last. "Things come kinder slow t' me. I was allus one t' drift 'long with the tide; but when I plump int' a rock I get some jarred, same as others. I went t' the city that time t' see if I could get my bearin's at a distance; but when I come back I sorter lost the channel an' took agin t' driftin'. But this here Hills business has livened me up considerable. Did you ever think what I left Pa fur an' went t' the city, Janet?"

"I thought you wanted to see the world, Mark."

"Well, I didn't. Quinton is world 'nough fur me. I went t' see if I could git, off there alone, a proper sense of jest what I did want. I wanted t' choose a course fur myself, independent of Pa, but save us! I hankered arter Pa so, an' I came nigh t' perishin' fur his cookin'. I come nigher, though, t' perishin' frum tryin' t' get somethin' like it once, while I was away!" A gleam of thin humor crossed the dull face.

"What was that?" Janet asked, thankful for any side path that led away from the danger point.

"Crullers!" Mark laughed a rattling, unmirthful laugh. "Crullers. I got thinkin' of Pa's one day; an' I went to a pasty shop an' I says, 'Have you got crullers?' The gal behind the counter says, 'Yes: how many?' I, recallin' Pa's, an' feelin' weak in the pit of my stomach frum hunger, I answered back, 'Three dozen!' The gal leaped back a step; then she hauled out a bag 'bout the size of a bushel an' begins shovellin' in round, humpy things, most all hole in the centre but considerable sizable as t' girth. I was up t' city ways by then, an' I warn't goin' t' show any surprise if she'd loaded an ister boat full of cakes on me. So I paid up 'thout a word an' went out of the shop shoulderin' the bag. It took me 'bout a week t' get rid of them crullers," groaned Mark; "an' I've told Pa since I come back, that he better learn to make city crullers fur the city trade this summer. Countin' holes an' puffy air, they pay better than Pa's solid little cakes."

Janet was laughing merrily.

"Why, Mark!" she said presently, "you've got an idea. Tell your father to make his crullers for the city trade. He'll make his fortune. Put a sign on your gate and teach the boarders what crullers really are!"

Mark was not heeding.

"I vum!" he went on presently, "while I was down t' the city, what with poor food an' not 'nough of it, an' homesickness fit t' kill, I thought I seed my course clear. I had a job openin' isters; an' I worked, I kin tell you! 'Bout all the city folks eat isters an' I seed a good bit of life down at my shop, an' I learned city ways an' badness! Then I got sick an' come home, thinkin' I was ready t' settle down, an' then I got t' driftin' an' so it went till now. An' when I heerd 'bout you goin' up t' the Hills an' knowin' what I do 'bout city ways, I just reasoned out that I must love you, else I wouldn't mind so much. I ain't no great shucks, but I can watch you, an' no one sha'n't harm you; an' Pa's more'n willin' t' see t' the house, an' cook, no matter who comes in as my wife; an' you kin run wild, an' no one will have the right t' hinder, an' I'll stand off an' watch, an' that's somethin'!"

"Oh, Mark, please, please don't!" The poor fellow's dumb effort to protect her was an added heartache to carry to the Hills. "You must not, Mark, dear. You don't want a woman to watch; you want one to watch with you, one whom you love and who loves you. Put that sign out for crullers, Mark, I know you can make money, and some day a good, helpful girl will come your way."

"No, Janet,"—Mark's patient voice sank drearily,—"if you won't let me watch over you, I'll watch without yer leave. I won't bother you none, but I thank God I've got city ways t' meet city ways! I'm plum 'shamed of the way our gals is actin' with the boarders. I'm a good watcher, Janet!"

They had come to the dividing of the ways.

"Can't I go on, Janet?"

"No, Mark, you must go home and sleep!"

"Good bye, Janet, till t'-morrer!"

"Good bye, Mark!" She watched the slouching figure out of sight.

"With all my watchers," she faltered, "I feel like a ship riding near the bar, with the crew's eyes upon it!" And then she went, less courageously, on the upward way.

The path ran up hill and down dale, with always a steady rise. The water of the bay lay blue and smiling roundabout the Hills: the scrub oak, the blueberries, the luxuriant wild rose, and variegated grasses made color so exquisite and rare, that the only wonder was that the Hills were not crowded with adoring Nature-worshippers. The never-ceasing breeze came caressingly over the flower-strewn stretches. Nothing stayed its course, and there was health-giving tonic in its breath.

Beyond, where Brown Brother raised its superior height, the artist colony had pitched its tents. Toward that settlement, with her daring request, Janet walked. As she neared it, her brave heart grew weak and weaker. How was she to word her proposition? What was she to offer in return for instruction that was to help her to fame and fortune? She feared every moment that she might meet a little wagon drawn by a sunbonneted, long-aproned woman, or a man not less picturesque. She sat down to consider; then, to make thought easier, she lay at full length, closing her eyes and dreaming luxuriously. The summer day lured her senses deliciously. Even the late experience with Mark was mellowed by the present delight. The memory of the recent encounter with the master of Bluff Head stirred her pulses to a quicker time. Ah, life was glorious! Life was full, in spite of all. It was like the sea in a fog or an unopened book. She had only to wait and smile and love, and life would expand into a perfect day.

Something drew the girl to a sitting posture; a nameless fear was upon her. She glanced around, and near her, upon a knoll, sat a man, a young man! No little wagon put its seal upon his calling, but the broad hat, set well back from the handsome face, had a distant but fatal mark of the artist colony upon it. The stranger had a board firmly placed upon his knees, and even as he gazed at Janet with a devouring intensity he was working rapidly with a long, slim brush.

"What are you doing?" The question was torn from the girl without reason or forethought.

"Painting a picture!" The voice was solemn, almost to absurdity.

"A picture of what?" Outraged imagination arose to the fore.

"The Spirit of the Dunes. Keep still a minute; then I'll let you see it if you want to."

"Yes: I do want to." Dignity of a new order was born within Janet at that instant.

This probably was a lesser being than the wagon-loaded geniuses. Their work was not unknown to the girl nor had it escaped her scorn. If this meaner devotee of art had mangled her into a hideous likeness of herself, she would resent it, and with reason. Slowly she arose and went up behind the man. What she saw stayed anger and all other emotions save wonder. Surely the Hills, with all their real color and outline, were ensnared upon that square of paper! Never was there a truer reflection of the bay. Janet could almost feel the breeze that swayed the scrub oaks and wild roses in the picture. But that marvel was the least. Who, what was that in the soft dimple of the little hill? A being of grace, of beauty, and of a wildness that was part of the Hills and wind!

In the final estimate of any picture two artists must bear part, the one who has wrought and the one who appreciates! These two looked now upon the exquisite sketch.

"How do you like it?" The man did not turn or raise his eyes, but his voice brought the quick color to the smooth, brown cheeks.

"Do—do—I look like that?"

"As near as mere man can reproduce you. If I had a magic brush and heaven's own paint pots, I believe I could have done better. I wish you had stayed a half hour longer, but thank God, I've at least caught a hint of you!"

"I—look—like—that!" Amazement thrilled through and through the low voice.

"You—look—like—that! And I am grateful for the best criticism I could ask. What's the matter? What in thunder is the matter?"

For Janet had sunk down beside him, hid her head in her folded arms, and was sobbing as if her heart would break.

"What—in—I say! Miss—Miss—What shall I call you? For heaven's sake, tell me what I've done?"

"Oh! you've dashed every bit of hope I had to—to earn money—and—and fame—for Cap'n Daddy and me!"

The young artist laid his sketch tenderly aside to dry. It was too precious to endanger, even in this disturbed moment. Once it was safe, he stood his full height of six feet two, put his hands in his jacket pockets, looked down upon the heaving body of the Spirit of the Dunes, and said firmly:

"You've got to explain yourself, you know. I don't want to use force, but really you must look me in the face and try to make me understand."

Janet lowered her hands at once and gazed upward with her eyes full of distress and apology.

"I do not know what you will think of me! I'm ashamed, indeed I am. But, well, you cannot understand. I never minded so much when I saw the things—the others did! Their pictures didn't look like anything real—anything like our dunes and the Hills, and I thought I could learn, at least, to do such pictures as theirs, and get money! But you've shown me—another kind! I can never, never learn to make such pictures as that!" Her sorrowful gaze fell upon the sketch, drying near by. "And, you—you seem to be taking something away from us. Something that is ours, not yours at all! What right have you to take the Hills—and me, without paying well for the privilege?"

During this harangue the man had stood motionless, gazing in growing astonishment upon the radiant uplifted face which was swept by passion's clouds, as the June sky was swept by softer ones.

"By Jove!" he muttered at last; and a smile broke upon his handsome, browned face. "You Quintonites make us pay well for all we get. You swoop down upon us like a cloud of vultures, or witnesses; but it's driving the bargain pretty hard, when you set a price upon what we see in it all, and what heaven meant should be free. As for you—" he paused, and threw himself full length upon the sand and laughed good humoredly, "I beg your pardon. I really had no right to put you in the picture without your permission. I thought, as true as heaven hears me, that you were like—well, the other girls of the place, and they coax to have themselves 'taken' as they call it. Now that I hear you speak, I see that you are different, and I beg your pardon, 'pon my word, I do. And what's more, the sketch is yours, unless you give me the right to keep it. I'm afraid I cannot make you understand my position, but the temptation to put you in the picture was too much for mortal painter-man!"

Janet's face cleared slowly.

"If you mean I'm different from the other girls, because I speak differently," she said slowly, "I can tell you that it is simply because I've listened and read more. I hate to use words badly, when they sound so much better right. I practise, but I'm just a Quinton girl."

"Oh! I see. You have higher aspirations? That is why you wanted to learn to paint?"

"No! At least, that isn't the real reason. I want money!"

"Great Scott!"

There was mockery and a new pleasure in the man's voice now. He was open to revelation in regard to Quinton characteristics, and he sensed an original type before him.

"You to tell me in this brutally frank manner that you want money! You with that face!"

A flush tinged the bronze of Janet's cheeks again.

"Yes: I want money!" she said defiantly. "Some get it by waiting on table. Some feed you and wash for you. I cannot do those things, I just cannot!"

"Heaven forbid!"

"But there must be some way?"

The frank, almost boyish tone disarmed the listener. His smile fled and when he spoke the mockery had departed. His better nature rose to meet the blind need in the girl's desire, and his artistic sense guided him to a possible path.

"I wish you would give me some name to call you by," he said. "You have mentioned Cap'n Daddy, am I to understand that your name is—is—"

"My Captain's name is Morgan: I'm Janet."

"Thank you, Miss Janet. I haven't a card, but Mr. Richard Thornly presents his compliments."

The humor of the situation began to dawn upon the girl.

"We are all captains down here," she explained, "we each have our captain. Mine is over at the Station on the beach. I'm staying just now with Captain David at the Light, while I'm looking for something to do."

"Miss Janet, I have a business proposition!" Thornly folded his arms. "I've had an inspiration. During the three-quarters of an hour that you lay upon the sands, I saw you, not only as I saw you then and caught you, but I saw you flitting through several pictures. I even named the pictures, Spirit of the Dunes. I advise you for your own good, Miss Janet, do not struggle to learn to make daubs! It never pays. It's hard enough to make the best go. But you can help me, and together we'll create some pictures that will set the town gaping. What do you say?"

"I do not understand."

"Well, sit for me; be my model! Let me put you in my pictures. I'll pay you well, and if I sell the pictures, you'll have a kind of fame to offer your Cap'n Daddy that no girl need be ashamed of. Have you caught my meaning?"

"You mean, if I sit here upon the Hills—"

"Sit, stand, or lie among them," Thornly explained.

"You'll paint me, and pay me, and then take your pictures to the city and sell them?"

"Try to," Thornly laughed easily. "I'm one of the few fortunate devils who has sold a picture or two. My hopes for the future are good."

"I'll do it!" cried Janet. "It's about the easiest way to get the boarders' money I've heard of yet!" The laugh that rang out made Thornly stare.

"I did not know any one could laugh in quite that way," he said. "It sounded—well, it sounded like part of the air and place. Miss Janet,"—he spoke slower, feeling his way as he went,—"I'm going to ask you to keep this business arrangement private. The other artists would be quick enough to filch my prize if they could."

"No one else shall paint me," Janet assured him. "If I see a little wagon, I'll pull down my bonnet."

"Thank you. And those on your side, too, Miss Janet! Your Cap'n Daddy, and that Captain of the Light, I'd like to surprise them by and by. Is it a go?"

"Oh! yes!" The frank innocence in the girl's face again stirred Thornly. "It's a go, if my watchers do not interfere."

"Your watchers?"

"Yes. I'm considered rather a—well, something like a ship that's likely to be wrecked. I don't know why folks are always thinking I may go on the bar, but they do. And several of them have an eye on me. I can almost feel Daddy's eye way over from the Station; and there's Davy! I shouldn't wonder now, if he were looking at me as he hauls the oil up to the lamp; and Susan Jane, chair-ridden as she is, has eyes that go out like a devilfish's feelers; and then there is Mark Tapkins! I'm afraid you'll have trouble with Mark's eyes!"

Thornly was laughing uproariously. "You open a vista of human possibilities that makes me about crazy," he said. "Your associates must all be Arguses; but I like not Mark! Just where does Tapkins come in?"

"'Most everywhere!" Janet joined in the care-free laugh. She felt perfectly at her ease with this stranger now. Born and reared where equality and good-fellowship existed, she knew no need of caution. To dislike a person was the only ground for suspicion. To like him was an open sesame to heart and confidence. And Janet liked the stranger immensely.

"Mark comes in 'most everywhere," she repeated. "You'll have to look out for Mark."

"He loves you, I suppose?" Thornly forbore to laugh, and he searched the frank face near him.

"Now whatever made you guess that? He is not quite sure himself. He's never sure of anything, and I never suspected it until lately—you're rather keen."

"Well, we'll escape Tapkins's eagle eye. Forewarned is forearmed. Now see here, partner, can you blow this whistle?" Thornly took a small golden watch charm from his fob. It seemed a toy, but when Janet placed it to her lips and blew, it emitted a shrill, far-reaching call that startled her.

"I'll prowl in these parts every day, when it doesn't pour cats and dogs," Thornly explained; "and when you can escape the watch,—come to the Hills, blow the whistle and presto! change! I'll be on the scene before you can count twenty. Miss Janet, fame and fortune yawn before us—actually yawn. And now may I keep this?"

He picked up the sketch and came close to the girl, his shoulder touching hers, as they looked at the picture together. "Yes!" Janet said softly, the beauty of the thing holding her anew, "yes! You've made them your very own, the Hills, and me, and the sky and the water! It's very wonderful. I never saw anything like it. If you only forget, it is easy to imagine that this is a reflection!"

"Thank you!" Thornly moved away. "Thank you! That's about the greatest praise I've ever had. This is only a water sketch, too; wait until you've seen it in oil! I've a shanty over there—" he pointed below them, where a hollow, opening toward the bay, held a tiny building in its almost secret shelter, "I'm generally there, when I'm not tramping the open. Would you, eh—well, would you mind letting me pose you there some day?"

"Oh, no!" Janet beamed delightedly, "I'd love to see the inside of your shanty. I dare say it's enchanted, and besides,"—she showed her white teeth deliciously,—"I do not believe Mark could watch me there!"

She rose and picked up her sunbonnet. "The sun has passed noon," she said ruefully, "and I've a good three miles to walk. Good bye, Mr. Thornly, it's been a wonderful morning." She started rapidly down the hill. Thornly waved to her as she went, until a friendly hillock hid her.

CHAPTER V

"Well, my boy! To think of you drifting down here. Have a cigar, and put your feet on the railing. I tell you, you may travel the world over, and there isn't an easier posture known, than the Yankee one of 'feet higher than head.'"

John Devant and Richard Thornly sat upon the wide veranda of Bluff Head; and Thornly, being thus given the freedom of Yankee position, planted his feet upon the high railing, tipped back his broad-armed chair, and inhaled the smoke of his host's good cigar.

"You've caught the language of the place already I see, Mr. Devant. Had we met anywhere else, another word would have done; 'drifting' applies here. No one 'runs down' to Quinton, or 'happens' down; one just naturally 'drifts.' It's a great place."

"You like it, eh?" Mr. Devant let his eyes rove over the wealth of color and wildness, and puffed enjoyably.

"It's immense! Strange, isn't it, how a place can lie slumbering for generations, right at our doors, and no one has sense enough to look at it? And after all, it is while it is sleeping, or beginning to stir, that it charms. Two years from now, when the rabble get onto the racket, the glory will be gone. Think of picnics on the Hills! Imagine a crowd rushing for the dunes, and the bay thick with sails! No! Let's make the best of it while we may."

Mr. Devant laughed. "I'll give it five or ten years," he said. "My grandfather had a vision of its future prosperity. He bought acres here for a mere song. He built this house, hoping the family would find it comfortable for the summers. My father liked it so well that he settled the library and general fixtures for a home, living winters at a hotel in town. But the old place was too lonely for me in the past. I'm just beginning to have visions, like my forebears. I'm sick of travel. Town life ought never to charm a natural animal except during the months of bad weather. My boy, I believe I'll settle down at fifty and take to land speculation! I'll buy up round here, keep the grip of the rabble off, and preserve this spot for the—pure in heart and them who have clean, hands!"

"'T would be a missionary work," Thornly rejoined lightly.

"Who turned your eyes hitherward, Dick?"

"Why, John Mason. He saw Chatterton's famous picture and came down and discovered this garden spot. Poor old Mason! With his money pots and his struggling love for beauty and simplicity, he is sore distressed. He wanted to build a cabin on the dunes and live here summers, but Madam and the girls almost had hysterics. They have just built a gingerbread affair at Magnolia, and so Mason added a den to the structure. A huge room overlooking the sea! It has space left on the wall for a big picture, and Mason gave me an order. 'Go down to that heaven-preserved spot,' he said, 'get the spirit of the place, and put it in my den. I don't mind the price. Stay down all summer, but get it!'"

"Do you think you can?" asked Devant. Thornly's gaze contracted.

"I think I have," he replied, slowly flicking the ashes that had accumulated upon his cigar.

"Good! That means more glory. In this sordid age, and with an uncomprehending public, you've had rare fortune in getting rid of your work, Dick. Your pictures are sellers, I hear. How proud your father would have been! My old friend was one of the few men I have known who set a price upon genius above money."

"Yes: I wish father and mother could have known. It's often a bit lonely."

"But there is Katharine. At least, I suppose, there is still Katharine?"

"Yes," slowly, "there is still Katharine; and our relations are the same. She's watching my stunts in art."

"She's proud of you?"

"She's proud of my success." Thornly smiled. "There's a difference, you know."

"Oh! yes. But Katharine is young. I'd like to see the child again. Is she as pretty as her childhood promised?"

"She is very handsome."

"Full of life and dimples?"

"Oh! she's giddy enough. Superb health, and undiminished scent for pleasure! Katharine is an undoubted success."

"I must have her down. My sister is coming at the month's end. I'll write to Katharine to-night and plead my friendship for her parents. Where is she? And I'll tell her you're here."

"She's at South End, with the Prescotts."

For some moments the older and the younger man smoked in silence. The sun set in due time and Captain David's Light appeared.

"What a living thing a lighthouse is!" said Thornly; "that and an open fire have the same vital, human interest."

"I believe you are right. When I find myself bad company, I always have a fire built if the temperature is below seventy. Since I came here I've taken to this side of the veranda, late afternoons, and I grow quite chummy with Cap'n Davy's Light."

Mr. Devant got up, stretched himself and took to pacing the piazza slowly.

"You know David of the Light?" asked Thornly.

"As a boy I knew the characters roundabout here, somewhat. I'm trying to reinstate myself in their good graces. This place produces strange and unexpected types."

"Yes, I found a pimpernel flower on the Hills to-day," said Thornly irrelevantly. "Even the flora is startling."

"You found what?"

"A pimpernel. It's a common wild flower in some sandy places, but a strange enough little rascal to be seen just here. It's called the poor man's weather glass. Where it grows most common, it is not especially noticeable; but it almost took my breath this morning. It's in keeping with the surprises of the surroundings."

Devant laughed.

"Well," he said presently, "it must be a relation, same family, you know, of a pimpernel of a girl I've discovered here."

Thornly again contracted his brows.

"Solitary flower? Shutting up at approach of storm, and all the rest?" he asked.

"Solitary flower, all right," Devant rejoined. "I'm not up on plant-ology, but I've studied humans, off and on, and I cannot account for this one. I don't know whether, in my position as friend to you, I should bring this odd specimen to your notice, but I'd like to have you, as an artist, pass judgment upon her beauty."

"I might have the storm's effect upon this pimpernel of yours," Thornly put in, "make her hide within herself."

"I fancy storms would not daunt her. I don't know but that she would rather enjoy them."

Thornly yawned secretly.

"Handsome, is she?"

"Not only that," said Devant, "I suppose she is wonderfully handsome. She has grace, too, and a figure, I should say, about perfect. But it is her mental make-up that staggers me. She talks in one way and thinks in another. She clings to her g's, too, in spite of local tradition. She hasn't a passing acquaintance with 'ain't,' or the more criminal 'hain't.' Her English is good, she reads like a starved soul, for the pure pleasure of it; and she thinks like a child of ten. By Jove! she was here in my library, the day I arrived. She had a secret method of getting into the house by a cellar window,—had done it for years. She almost froze my blood when I saw her. I thought I'd struck a ghost for certain. She was reading Shakespeare! Said she hadn't been able to get beyond him for three months. She began to read when she was little, at the bottom shelf, and has worked her way up to the fifth. And yet with all that, she's a simple child, Dick. Smollett and Fielding and heaven knows who else are on the third shelf!"

"Lord!" cried Thornly, and laughed loudly; "who is this pimpernel?"

"Janet of the Dunes. Cap'n Billy's girl! Been brought up like a wild thing! Sails a boat like an old tar! Swims like a fish! Motherless—old Billy, a poor shote, according to the gossip! The women have a sort of pitying contempt for him; the men keep their mouths shut, but you can fancy the training of this girl. I'm always interested in heredity and I'd like to know the girl's mother. Something ought to account for my pimpernel." Thornly was rising.

"I'll try to account for my flower, Mr. Devant," he said. "I dare say some untoward wind bore it from its original environment; it may be that the same reasons exist in the case of this flower of yours. Good night!"

"Stay to late dinner, Dick! You know you don't want to go back to a dish of prunes and soggy cake. Better stay."

"No. Thank you, just the same. I'm going to bunk out in my shanty to-night. I've got a chafing dish there. The prunes were undermining my constitution. Good night!"

Devant watched him until the shrubbery hid him.

"I'll get Katharine down as soon as I can," he mused; "and for his father's sake, as well as his own, I'll try to keep him and the pimpernel apart until then. His engagement to Katharine is a safe anchor."

But while Davy's Light shone friendly-wise upon Bluff Head, it also did its duty by a lonely little mariner putting off from Davy's dock.

It had been a hard day for Janet. Susan Jane, with almost occult power, had seemed to divine the girl's longing to get away.

"Boarder or no boarder!" the helpless woman had snarled, "I reckon you've got somethin' human 'bout you. If you can't stop an' do fur me, I'll call David. I've had a bad night an' I ain't goin' t' be left t' myself. There's stirrin' doin's goin' on; but no one comes here t' gossip."

"I'll stay," Janet had sighed, remembering David's worn, patient face when he staggered toward the bedroom an hour before. "But I cannot gossip, Susan Jane, I don't know how; and all the other folks are busy cooking, feeding, washing for, and waiting on the boarders. City folks come high, Susan Jane."

"Well, if you can't gossip, Janet, there is them as can. Thank God! when He took the use of my legs an' arms, He strengthened my eyes an' ears. I can see an' hear considerable, though there is them who would deny me that comfort if they could. What ails you an' Mark Tapkins?"

"Nothing, Susan Jane."

"Yes, there be, too. He's more womble-cropped than ever. They say his Pa is makin' a mint of money sellin' them crullers of his'n. Who would have thought of Mark's bein' smart enough to set his Pa on that tack? The way these city folks eat anythin' that is give them is scandalous. They must have crops like yaller ducks. Have you heard 'bout Mrs. Jo G.'s Maud Grace?"

"No, Susan Jane." Janet stirred the cake she was making by Susan's recipe energetically.

"You're deef as a bulkhead, Janet! I bet you're envious."

"Envious, Susan Jane, envious of Maud Grace?"

"Oh! you have had yer eyes open, eh?"

"You just asked me about her, Susan Jane."

"Did I? Well, it's simply amazin' how Mrs. Jo G. is developin' a business talent. Actually keepin' her girl dressed up t' entertain the boarders, evenin's! She's got some one t' help wait in the dinin' room, an' she cooks. Jo G. sails the boarders, when they pay him enough, an' that girl just sparks around an' acts real entertainin', evenin's. I shouldn't wonder, with such a smart ma, if she caught a beau. I do wish, Janet, since you ain't got no one but Billy,—an' every one knows he's got 'bout as much gumption as a snipe,—I do wish you could land one of these boarders. They must be real easy from what I hear."

"I don't want them!"

"Course you don't! An' you don't want t' work fur your livin', an' Mark ain't good enough fur you. You'd better look out, Janet, I tell you fur your good, it ain't safe fur you t' trust yer leanin's too far."

So the day had passed. The afternoon had brought Mark Tapkins with his gloomy face, too, so Janet had been obliged to give the Hills a wide berth and only darkness brought relief.

Susan Jane was bewailing her woes in David's patient ears,—it was Mark's night in the Light,—so, unseen and unsuspected, Janet loosed the Comrade, unfurled the white wing before the obliging land breeze, and made for the Station.

It was a glorious summer night; full moon, full tide, and a steady west wind heavy with the odor of the Hills.

As the little boat darted ahead, Janet's spirits rose as poor David's did, when once he parted company with the burden of Susan Jane's peevish egotism. She looked back at the Light and thought, with a little sigh of weariness, that she was free from the watchfulness of the three within its walls.

"Only the Light has an eye upon me! Kind, good Light! Cap'n Daddy and I do not need you to-night, but, come storm, then God bless you!"

It was not the girl's intention to run up to the Station dock. She knew that Cap'n Billy had the midnight patrol, going east; so she planned to make for the little cove, midway between the Station and the halfway house, and take Billy by surprise and assault.

She chuckled delightedly as she constructed her mode of attack. She was hungry to feel the comfort of Billy's understanding love and trust. The more she had to conceal from Billy, the more she yearned to be near him.

The Comrade, responding to the steady hand upon the tiller, shot into the cove. The girl secured the boat and ran lightly over the dunes to the seaward side; then she lay down among the sand grasses and waited.

She seemed alone in God's world. The moon-lighted ocean spread full and throbbing before her. The sky, star-filled and blue-black, arched in unbroken splendor. The waste and solitude held no awe for this girl of the Station. They had been her heritage and were natural and homelike to her. Under summer skies and through winter's storms she knew the coast's every phase of beauty or danger. It was hers, and she belonged to it. A common love held them together. She crouched close to the sandy hillock. The night was growing old, the tide had turned, and still she sat absorbed in thought and tender memory. How beautiful the world and life were! She took from her bosom the tiny whistle, which had been for five long, delicious weeks her power of summoning unlimited joy to herself. What a new element had entered into her existence! How powerful and self-sufficient she felt as she recalled her part in those wonderful pictures that were growing day by day in the shanty on the Hills!

Her blood rose hotly in her young body, as she lived again, under the calm sky, those weeks of perfect bliss.

Suddenly the girl sat upright, put the whistle in its hiding place, and strained her eyes toward the Station.

Yes: there came Billy! He was striding along; head bowed, except when conscientiously he gazed seaward, scanning with his far-sighted eyes the bar where danger lay, come storm or fog. But could there be danger on such a night as this?

Billy, faithful soul, had not a nature attuned to the glory of the night, but he had a soul sensitive to a brother's need. If he gave heed at all to the summer beauty, it was merely in thankfulness that all was well.

"Help! help!" Billy stopped suddenly and raised his head. "Help! help! Here's a poor, little brig on the bar!"

A smile of joy overspread the man's face, a smile that drove all care and weariness before it.

"Ye little specimint!" he called, "what ye mean by burrowin' in the sand an' scarin' one of the government officials clar out o' common sense? Come here, ye varmint!"

"My Cap'n!" The strong young arms were about the rugged neck. "You were just going to send up a Coston light, now weren't you, Daddy?"

"No. I war not! I don't waste nary a Coston on a wuthless little hulk like ye. Come on, girl, I've been takin' it easy. I ain't as young as I once was. We must make the halfway in season. 'T ain't the fust time we've took the patrol together, is it, Janet?"

He held the girl's hand in his, and she accommodated her step as nearly as possible to his long, swinging gait.

"Kinder homesick?" he asked presently.

"Kind of you-sick! I wanted to be near you. I wanted—you," Janet whispered.

"Durned little cozzler!" chuckled Billy. "I know what yer up t'. Ain't got nothin' t' do yet, over on the mainland; just a lazy little tormint; an' ye want t' cozzen yer Cap'n Billy. Why can't ye jine the army that's plain fleecin' the city folks? They be the easiest biters, 'cordin' t' what I hear, that has ever run in t' these shoals. Reg'lar dogfish one an' all."

"Oh! I pick up a penny now and then;" Janet pursed her pretty mouth and set her head sideways. "I made enough to pay Susan Jane for last week and this. Susan's an old leech, Cap'n Billy. It's simply awful to see her greed in money matters. Sitting in her chair, she can manage to want more, strive to get more, and make more fuss about it, than any other woman on the mainland. You have to live with Susan Jane to appreciate her. Oh! poor Davy. We never really knew what a hero he is, Daddy. He's splendid!"

It had been necessary, unless Susan Jane was to receive double pay for her boarder, that Janet should inform Billy as to her money-getting; but once the fact was stated, the girl hurried to other thoughts, in order to divert Billy.

"How'd ye get yer money, Janet?" A serious look came into the man's face. "It's uncommon clever of ye t' help yerself on; if the money only comes in a God-fearin' way!"

"Cap'n Daddy!" Janet drew herself up magnificently. "Do you take me for Maud Grace?"

"No, I don't, I'm takin' ye fur my gal, an' it's my duty t' see that ye don't furgit yer trainin' over on the boarder-struck mainland! But what's wrong 'long o' Mrs. Jo G.'s gal?"

"Nothing. Except she keeps dressed up to entertain the boarders, and takes tips. That's what she calls them."

"Tips?" Billy wrinkled his brows.

"Yes. Money for doing nothing. Cap'n Daddy, I work for my money."

"Doin' what?" Billy's insistence was growing vexatious.

"Daddy, don't you ever tell!" Janet danced in front of him and walked backward as she pointed a finger merrily.

The moonlight streaming upon the girl showed her beauty in a witchlike brightness. It stirred Billy in an uneasy, anxious fashion.

"There ain't no call t' tell any one," he said, "you an' me is enough t' know. Us an' them what pays ye!"

"Cap'n Daddy; I'm—a—model!"

"A modil—what?"

Janet's laugh rose above the lapping water's sound.

"Why, Daddy! Don't you think I'm a model everything?"

"No," Billy shook his head; "I ain't blind, gal, ye ain't what most folks would call a modil, I'm thinkin'!"

"Well, the artists think I am!"

"The artists? Them womin in bonnets and smutchy pinafores? Gosh!"

For a moment Janet's truth-loving soul shrank from deceiving Billy, but her promise to Thornly held her. She stopped her merry dance and came again beside him, clasping the hard hand tenderly within her own.

"What do they think ye a modil of?" asked the man, and his face had lightened visibly.

"Oh! just what their silly fancy tells them. Only don't you see, Daddy, dear, they don't want any one to know until the pictures are done. It would spoil the—the—well, I cannot explain; but they want to spring the pictures upon folks by and by."

"'Cordin' t' what Andrew Farley tells," grinned Billy, all amiability now, "no one will be likely t' know ye from a scrub oak stump when the picters is done. Andrew says when he thinks of all it costs t' paint a boat an' then sees the waste of good, honest paint up on the Hills, it turns his stummick sick. Well, long as it is innercent potterin' like that, Janet, I don't know but as yer considerable sharp t' trade yer looks fur their money. It rather goes agin the grain with me t' have ye git the best of them. But Lord! as the good book says, a fool an' his money is soon parted, an' so long as they're sufferin' t' part with theirs, I don't know but what ye have a right t' barter what cargo yer little craft carries, as well as others what have less agreeable stores on board." Janet laughed merrily.

"Mark Tapkins was on yisterday," Billy continued; "he says Bluff Head's open an' Mr. Devant an' a party is there. Must be quite gay an' altered on the mainland." Janet's face clouded.

"Cap'n Daddy," she faltered, "I'm going to tell you something else."

"Yer considerable talky, it seems t' me." Billy eyed the girl.

"Cap'n Billy, have you ever wondered why I talk better than most of the others at the Station?"

"I don't know as I would allow that ye do," Billy replied; "ye talk differenter, somewhat, but I don't know as it's better."

"Well, it is. And it isn't all the teachers' doings either, Daddy, for Maud Grace and the rest never changed much; but for years, Daddy, I've been crawling in the cellar window of Bluff Head, when no one on earth knew, and I've read five shelves of books! I've thought like those books, and talked like them, until I seem to be like them; and, Daddy, the day Mr. Devant came home, he found me in his library-room, reading his books!"

"Gawd!" ejaculated Billy, and stood stock still. "Did he fling ye out, neck and crop?" he gasped at last.

"Daddy! he's a nice old gentleman!"

"Old? He ain't dodderin' yet. An' he use t' have a bit of pepper in his nater. What did he do?"

"Do? Why, he gave me the key to his front door. He reads with me and tells me what to read. We're great friends!"

"Yer 'tarnal specimint!" Billy was shaking. "I see ye've caught the mainland fever, eh, gal? Ye don't want t' bide on the dunes 'long o' old Billy, now, eh?"

"You blessed old Cap'n!" Janet struggled to hold her prize. "I'm perfectly happy! And I had to come over here to-night and tell you."

"Janet,"—Billy's eyes were dim,—"I keep wishin' more an' more that ye had a ma. I ain't never thought openly on it fur years, not since ye was fust borned. But as ye grow int' womanhood, ye seem as helpless as ye did then. I wish ye had a ma!"

The little halfway house was in front of them. Andrew Farley, who served on the crew at the Station beyond, was in the doorway.

"What ye got in tow, Billy?" he called jovially.

"Jest a tarnal little bit of driftwood, Andy." Billy rallied his low spirits.

"Hello, Janet!" Andrew recognized her. "How comes ye kin leave the mainland? I thought every one who could, stuck there t' see the show. By gracious! Billy, ye jest oughter see how things is altered." The two men exchanged the brass checks, then, before returning to their stations, they stood chatting easily.

"Been up to the Hills lately, Janet?" The girl flushed.

"Not very," she replied. "Come on, Cap'n Daddy, I'm going to stay on and sleep in the cottage to-night."

"Them artists," Andrew continued, turning slowly in his own direction, "them artists is smudgin' up the landscape jest scandalous. One of them wanted t' paint me, the other day, an' I held off an' let her. Lord! ye should jest have seen wot she done t' my likeness! I nearly bu'st when she showed me. I ain't handsome, none never accused me of that crime, but I ain't lopsided an' lantern-jawed t' the extent she went. She said I had a loose artistic pose; them was her words, but I ain't so loose that I hang crooked."

Janet slept in the cottage on the dunes that night; and when the men rose to go through the sunrise drill, she ran down the beach, across the sand hills, and set her sail toward the mainland. She had had her breakfast in the Station with the men and, recalling her difficulty in escaping Susan Jane the day before, she headed the Comrade away from the Light and glided toward the Hills.

Mark Tapkins, turning down the wick as the sun came up, saw the white sail set away from home; and something heavier than sleep struck chilly upon his heart. He knew from past spying where Janet was going!

CHAPTER VI

Janet, used as she was to the keen, sweet air of the Hills, stood, after securing her boat, and drew in deep breaths of the fragrant morning. She had taken off her shoes and stockings, for the dew lay heavy upon the ground; and these, wrapped in a fish net, were flung across her shoulder. There was a good half mile to tread before the little hut could be reached bodily, but the whistle's call, going on before, would open the gates of Paradise if Thornly were there! The girl did not put her doubt to the test just yet. There was bliss in dallying with the joy, the bliss of youth, innocence, and unalloyed faith.

Thornly might have stayed, as he generally did, at his own boarding house or at Bluff Head. Janet had learned of his intimacy there, although she had never imagined Mr. Devant's ingenuity in trying to keep them, at first, apart. If Thornly were away from the shanty, Janet knew the hiding place for the key; she could enter at will and the secrets of the treasure house were not hidden from her.

"Lock the door after you, whether you are in or out," was Thornly's command. "No one must know, until the very last!" And the girl would have cheerfully defended the place with her life. Over sandy hillocks she went gleefully. The artist in her was throbbing wildly, she had a new inspiration for Thornly's brush! She led his fancy in riotous joy. Where his genius grew slack, hers urged him to renewed effort.

The morning came up ruddily from the sea; it came with a south-wind playfulness, which tossed the girl's glistening hair with free touch and kissed the glowing face into richer beauty.

Presently the little, secluded hut came into view; the very next hollow held it! Janet stood upon the last hill, drew out her whistle and with smiling lips, that with difficulty formed themselves to the task, sent forth her call. The musical note penetrated the stillness. A bird rose affrightedly from a near-by bush; but it, and the waiting girl, seemed to have the Hills to themselves.

"So much the better!" murmured Janet, sparkling with excitement. "It will be all the more surprising." She ran rapidly forward, secured the key and opened the door. Then she obediently locked it again and stood within the room gazing tenderly at every beloved object. It was just as Thornly had left it. He had waited all day for the girl; he had wanted her to pose in the open, but she had failed him and he had evidently devoted himself to the picture he was painting, as he had told her, for his own private use. "My Pimpernel," he called it, and rough as the work was at that stage, it was full of beauty and promise. It was Janet, little more than sketched, to be sure, but a startling likeness; and the wreath of pimpernel flowers, on the glorious sun-touched hair, had evidently been the artist's last work.

The throne-like space, with the cushions and low divan upon which the girl posed, was in full view, with Thornly's jacket and pipe lying carelessly upon it. The curtain, which always hung over the picture for Mr. Mason, was drawn aside. Apparently the man had had less reason to hide that from any chance visitor. Janet walked over to the table and raised the cover of the chafing dish.

"He ate at the boarding house," she whispered, "else I'd have to wash this. He's scandalously untidy!" She picked up a glass and sniffed.

"Wine!" she announced, "wine for a party,—and cracker crumbs! Company! I wonder who? One, two, three, four wineglasses. Bluff Headers!" Then the smile trembled before the memory of Mr. Devant's proud, haughty sister and the young lady unlike any one the dune-bred girl had ever seen before. Not even the most gorgeous boarder in the least resembled her. She was so icily cold, so calmly beautiful; so exquisitely dressed in white, white always, with a dash of gold to match her smooth, shining hair! No power could draw Janet to Bluff Head after the one visit during which the two ladies had frankly and condescendingly taken stock of her, evidently in consequence of remarks made by the master of the house.

For the first time in her life, Janet had felt the resentment of being "looked down upon." Had she a particle of malice or suspicion in her nature, the resentment might have rankled and grown into hate, for the girl had all the pride and independence of the place. As it was, she had withdrawn into herself, like the flower to which she had been likened, and had vanished from sight.

"I won't wash the glasses!" the laugh rang merrily like the laugh of a child; "let her wash her own glass, and soil her pretty frock."

But this declaration of independence did not prohibit a general tidying in other respects. The north window shade was rolled up and the sash raised; the easel drawn out into place before the low stool; and the jacket and pipe arranged conveniently at hand for the master when he should appear.

"And now," rippled the girl, "I'll give him a surprise and a shock!" First, she went outside, relocked the door and hid the key; then nimbly entered the hut by the north window. Once inside again, she closed the window and, trembling with excitement and hurry, ran to the posing platform and flung herself among the cushions. Then she spread her hair loosely over the sea-green pillows that rose around her. The net was caught up and draped about the slim, graceful body. Eyes and small brown feet showed between the meshes; the conceit was deliciously bewildering!

When all was arranged, she cautiously let fall the shielding curtain and waited.

"He'll come early!" she whispered, "oh! very early. And I wonder what he will call this picture?"

The night's patrol, and the mastering of Billy, had tired the girl. The couch was sleep-enticing, the pillows dream-bringing, and the day was yet young; so Janet slept, a vision to touch any heart, one to stir an artist to holy rapture.

How long she slept Janet never knew, but the grating of the key in the lock awakened her. Her heart beat wildly and the blood ran riotously in her veins. The door opened, some one spoke; and then, as if before a north blast, all the glow and glory of Janet's joy froze within her!

"Wasn't I clever to watch where he hid the key, Mr. Devant? And how utterly good of you to enter the conspiracy and help me find him out! I know he has an immortal picture somewhere here! He wants to spring it upon you and me along with the herd, by and by. But we wish to be partakers in the pleasure of preparation, do we not, Mr. Devant?"

The musical voice had a ring in it not altogether lovely. "Stand aside, Mr. Devant! See, he must have brought his work out after we left yesterday. It was orderly enough then; but look at it now! Let us examine this upon the easel. But first, open the door. I smell stale wine. The untidy fellow has not washed the glasses!"

Mr. Devant opened the door and said with a half laugh, "I'm not quite sure how Dick will like this, Katharine. But while the cat's away—"

"Ah!" The word came sharply. "Mr. Devant, look here!" The two were standing before the easel.

"Good Lord!" cried the man. "The Pimpernel! Katharine, this Dick of ours has prepared a surprise for us sure enough!"

"He evidently had reasons for holding us at bay, Mr. Devant." A thinly veiled sneer was in the low, even voice. "He has been using that wild, odd, young creature of yours as a model! And he has never told you? I greatly fear our sly Dick has been—well, deceitful!"

"Oh! my dear girl!" Devant reassured her, "you do not understand. Dick has probably had to procure such a model upon terms of secrecy, not on his own account, but hers! You do not know these people. They are not above taking money, but they make their own terms."

"Terms?" Again the scornful tone.

"Yes, my dear! Why, what do you think would happen if I called my cook Eliza instead of Mrs. Smith? Starvation, my dear, actual starvation! And I carry my own laundry to Mrs. Abner Snow's,—carry it and fetch it. This girl now might be willing to pose, and you must admit that she is a raving beauty, but she would hold Dick to a cast-iron vow never to let any one know. What's more, I can take my oath, knowing these people as I do, that the girl never sets her foot in Dick's shop without a body guard of at least one captain, perhaps three or four!"

"Let us see if he has any more secrets!" There was relaxation in the clear voice. "Let us hurry; Dick may be here at any moment, and I do so want to get ahead of him just to punish him for his underhand methods!"

Janet heard the two turn; she knew they were coming directly to the platform.

"Once,"—the slow, fine voice had regained its smoothness,—"once in New York I dropped in at Dick's studio when he did not expect me. I wanted him to take me out to luncheon; and I had the oddest experience! Oh! Mr. Devant, look at that bit, pinned to the wall! That is really exquisite! Well, as I was saying, I stole in upon Dick. I called from the outer room that it was I—I wished afterward that I had not!—and then I ran into the studio. As quick as a flash, Dick dropped a curtain, just like this, between me and his easel! I was determined to see what he had been painting, but he positively forbade it. He said it was a painter's prerogative to warn even—love from that holy of holies. I often wonder what was behind the curtain. I realized from that moment that if you want to see a great artist's best work, you must override his modesty and secretiveness—and tear the screen from his altar!"

With a light laugh, the girl now drew aside the sheltering curtain with playful, dramatic force, and lay bare the secret that it hid!

Janet did not move. Her great, startled eyes, dark, intense, and passion-filled, stared helplessly at the two, who, transfixed, returned the stare in frozen silence. So rigid and deathlike the model lay in the meshes of the net, so beautiful and graceful in her motionless pose, that for an instant the intruders could not trust their senses. Then the woman found voice and action.

"I fear," she said slowly, coldly, and distantly, "I fear we really have intruded where we have no right, Mr. Devant." Then she laughed a rich, rippling laugh. "And the captains! where are the captains, my dear Mr. Devant? They seem to have omitted the captains to-day. Pray let us go at once. I would not interfere with Dick's future fame for all the world! I can quite understand why artists hide their best work at times!" Without a word, Mr. Devant dropped the curtain.

Janet heard them go out, heard them lock the door, and realized that they hid the key. She tried to get up, but the intention was only mental and died without an effort. A physical sickness and bodily weakness held her. To lie still was the only course possible, but the thoughts rushed madly through the awakened mind. In that hour womanly instinct was born, the instinct that armed itself against suspicion and another's contempt. Shame, for what was not real but suggested by a coarser mind, hurt and blinded her. The child in Janet had been killed by that white, cold woman, and what arose was more terrible than the slayer could have imagined, for this new creature scorned the innocence and weakness of that lately crushed childhood. It held in contempt the poor, vain, cheap thing that had offered, actually offered, itself to a being that came from a world that knew and had power to despise.

Wave after wave of torment engulfed the poor girl as she lay without a struggle in her net. The apple of understanding had been forced between her lips by the refined cruelty of another woman. Instinctively, Janet found a sort of dumb comfort in the memory of the look she recalled in Mr. Devant's eyes, but while life lasted her soul would shrivel at the memory of the glance which that proud, beautiful girl had cast upon her.

The lovely face upon the sea-green pillows paled and flushed as the flood of growing knowledge gathered force. The eyes grew dark and terror-racked, and misery claimed the newborn woman.

Then again the key grated in the lock. Strengthened by the perception that was now hers, the girl sprang to a sitting posture and drew her feet beneath the shelter of the coarse red skirt. The net ensnared her further and so she sat, caught fast in the meshes and in the terror of her condition.

Thornly entered the room, closed and locked the door. Then he opened the windows wide. His eye and ear would warn him of intruders, and the breath of the summer day he must have! Janet heard him stop before the easel; then his laugh, contented and youth-filled, rang clearly in the little room.

"Beauty!" he muttered. "Great heaven, what almost weird beauty! My Pimpernel, you'll make me famous!" Then he whistled gayly, hung up his coat and hat—did not the listening girl know every movement?—drew on the old paint besmirched jacket, and filled his pipe.

"Dirty wineglasses!" he muttered, "bah! how the stale wine befouls this air! Outside you go to await your purification!" The glasses were set jinglingly upon the window ledge. Then Thornly came to the curtain and flung it heedlessly back.

"Good Lord!" he ejaculated, and staggered away. The panic-stricken face, that met his, paralyzed him for the moment; then he laughed.

"Pimpernel!" he drew nearer; "dear child, you are as full of surprises as this glorious day and the Hills. You've brought me a new sensation, a heaven-sent inspiration. What a partner you are! God bless you!"

"Don't you—touch—me!" Janet warned off the extended hands. Her arms were free, and they must serve her now.

"Janet! What ails you, child?"

"I do not know. I cannot think. Only I know you must not touch me; and—and I'm not a child any more!"

Then tears came, a wild, remorseful flood. The girl swayed upon the couch, torn by the emotions that lashed her cruelly. Thornly stood apart. Something undefinable held him to his place. He recalled the first day he had met this strange girl upon the Hills and her tears then; but these were different. In a subtle, unspeakable way he realized that something startling had brought about this changed condition from yesterday's Eden-like life.

"I wish you could tell me what is the matter," he said pityingly and quietly. He did not move toward her, but his tone, with its sympathetic reserve, did the one thing he longed to do; it drew the girl's trust and confidence. The storm of sobs lessened. The hidden face was raised and the burden of fear and distress lifted slowly.

"They—have been here!" The words came upon the crest of the last sob.

"They—who?" Thornly's eyes contracted.

"Mr. Devant and the one he calls Katharine."

"Great heavens! And you let them in?"

"They found the key and came in." Thornly muttered something inaudibly. "They wanted to see your pictures; they saw everything, and me!" Again the misery spread over the vivid face. Thornly was unable to take his eyes from that pitiful gaze, but for a moment his own position in this play held part.

"What did they say?" he asked at length.

"Mr. Devant said nothing! I cannot remember what she said—but whatever it was, it made me know that she thinks me—oh! what can I say?—something too awful to bear! And you, you knew what women like her might think! That is why you made me promise not to tell; that is why you kept the door locked! You knew how the people like her would scorn me! and yet you would not save me! Oh! I know it was because of your pictures! You would let folks like her think what they wanted to, so long as you got what you wanted!" The brief confidence in him was gone.

There was a power in this fury that shook Thornly as he listened. The blazing face of outraged womanhood confronted him, and the accusation brought truth and torment with it.

"Get what I wanted?" he groped blindly in his soul for an honest answer as to what he had wanted.

"Yes. What you wanted! You wanted my face, because it is beautiful; because I was like this place, the Hills and dunes! You thought me like them, just a thing to put upon your canvas to make you rich and famous! But I am a girl, like that girl up at Bluff Head! I am as good as she!"

"My God!" Thornly looked at the bowed head, that sank again beneath the waves of passion. His eyes grew dim and his face paled. His soul had answered and had passed judgment that gave him grace to breathe freely!

"Janet," he said gently, "my poor girl! I am going to wait by the door until you get out of the net and into your shoes; then come to me. I have much, much to say to you." He did not offer, by thought or motion, to assist her. He turned and sat guard by the open door, puffing vigorously at his pipe.

Janet disentangled herself and put on her stockings and shoes. Then, shod and with a strange dignity, she crossed the room and stood beside the man, leaning against the jamb of the door for support.

Thornly looked up and smiled; then he shook the ashes from his pipe, placed it in his pocket, and offered Janet his stool. She shook her head.

"I'll sit on the sand," she said, and sank down outside the door.

"My poor Janet," Thornly began, "I do not know what to say. I want to make you understand and I am afraid I may make further mistakes. I see I have wronged you. In a sense, I've been a bungling fool; but as true as God hears me, I didn't want you upon my canvas for any low or mean reason. I swear that as truly as I ever spoke. It seemed my right to make live what I saw in you. Maybe it was not my right—I begin to fear it was not—but it seemed so at first. I don't know how to say it, but somewhere I have read a thought like this. When an artist enters his studio he hangs up his passions with his coat and hat. You won't understand that. No woman can, perhaps, and not many men; but it's true as surely as heaven hears me! and it accounts for a deal of good as well as bad! That is the way I felt. I was greedy to catch you as I saw you. I wanted no one to share the triumph. I never thought of women like Katharine or men like Mr. Devant. I did think of the Quinton folks, and that is the only reason I locked the door! Please try and believe that, my dear girl! If I had one unselfish thought, it was for you and for your people, not for the others like those at Bluff Head. I could have told them all about it when my pictures were hung at the Academy; and that would have ended it."

The girl upon the sands sat with hands clasped around her knees. Her dark, clear eyes never wavered from the speaker's face, and Thornly saw trust and a growing calm rising in them again.

"If I had gone far enough in thought," he continued, "I might have hoped that such beauty and power as you have would have made you great and strong enough in nature to want to help make these pictures, in spite of everything! I believe in a slow, dull way I did think that about you once in a while. I know I never meant to harm the woman in you, Janet; believe me, I swear that!"

His eyes met hers and never faltered. The girl drew a long breath. Then she shivered slightly and sighed again.

"I—I think I see, a little, what you mean," she quivered; "you thought I was better than I am. Higher, nobler than some folks, because I am so—so beautiful?" Not a shadow of common vanity rang through the words. "You thought I would be glad to help in your pictures and never care what others might think, others who cannot understand? You are a great artist, and you thought me an artist—but in a different way? Oh! it comes to me just as Davy's Light comes of an early morning, when the fog lifts. What a mean, wretched thing I have been to let stings hurt, when that splendid picture—waits—for—me!" A radiance spread over the wistful face. Thornly was dazzled and could only stare helplessly.

"See," she had arisen, and stood before him in all her strong, young beauty; "you need me? Without me you cannot make your splendid picture?"

Thornly shook his head.

"It is not the money you want, nor just the fame, but you want to give the world a great joy."

"Yes, yes! As God is my witness, Janet, that is my desire."

"Then I will help. Oh! forgive me! Come, please, come, only"—here she smiled pitifully—"please leave the door open! It shall never matter again; nothing can change things now."

Thornly staggered to his feet and half extended his hand to draw the girl in; then something stayed him.

"I cannot paint to-day, Janet," he whispered. "Something is changed. Perhaps the old longing will return, but I must not trust myself until I know. Go, little Pimpernel, you are the greater artist of us two!"

"I'm very sorry the day is spoiled," she returned brokenly; "if I had only known more, it would have been different. It seems as if I cannot ever forgive myself."

She turned, and went sadly over the hills with never a backward look. And Thornly gazed after her with yearning eyes. She was taking with her—what? Inspiration? Yes, but something deeper and more vital was passing with that vanishing form. What was it? What had occurred to change the summer sunlight to drearest gray?

CHAPTER VII

Late August hung heavily over Quinton. The city folks, who counted their year's playtime by two weeks' vacation, had come and gone, in relays. The artists, never tiring of the changing charms of this new-found beauty-spot, gave no heed to the passing season. Only cold, and acute bodily suffering could attract their attention. Good, poor, and indifferent revelled in the inspiration-haunted Hills and magnificent sweep of shore.

The natives counted their gains with bated breath and dreamed visions of future summers that made them dizzy.

Poor Susan Jane was the only woman, apparently, upon the mainland, who had swung at anchor through all the changed conditions. Susan, who once had been the ruling spirit of the village and Station! Susan, whose sharp tongue and all-seeing eye had governed her kind! Susan had been obliged to gather such bits of driftwood as had floated to her chair, during the history-making season,—and draw such pleasure from it as she could. The strain had worn upon the paralyzed body. The active mind had stretched and stretched for material until the helpless frame weakened. The sharp tongue was two-edged now, and gossip that reached Susan Jane assumed the blackest color. Her searching eyes saw through everything, and gripped all secrets.

David's songs, as he mounted the winding stairs, took on a soberer strain. Sometimes he omitted, even at the top, his hilarious outburst to the "lobster pots;" and his sigh and laugh combination was an hourly occurrence.

Janet noticed it all. She was alive to the atmospheric chill of the village, though in no wise understanding it. She was troubled and fretted by many things, but she went her way. The money she had earned by posing she dealt out in miserly fashion to Susan Jane; while at the same time she assumed many household cares to ease David, whom she loved.

There was no more money coming to her now, for after the scene in the hut upon the Hills Thornly had gone away for a week, and upon his return he had told Janet he would send her a message when again he needed her. The man's tone had been most kindly, but it seemed a rebuff from which the girl had not been able to recover. Once or twice she had stolen to the hut, when she was sure the master was away; always the key was in its hiding place. Softly she had gone in and stood in the sacred room. The same picture stood ever upon the easel, the same beautiful unfinished picture! Upon one visit the girl had taken a rare pimpernel blossom she had found in a lonely hollow and laid it on the empty stool before the canvas. It was still there when she went again! Faded and neglected it lay before the shrine, and the message never came that was to call her to the Hills.

The people of the village, too, were different. They were busy and took small notice of the girl. Business, Janet thought, was the only reason. Mrs. Jo G. in particular was changed, but it had been a hard summer for Mrs. Jo G., and when, after many attempts to secure Janet as waitress, she had failed, she turned upon the girl sharply.

"You might be doin' worse things!" she snapped, "you're growin' more an' more like yer ma, an' it ain't t' yer credit!" That was the first inroad the oncoming wave of sentiment had made in the bulkhead of local reticence.

Janet started. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"What I say. An' what's more, Janet, if you can't turn in an' be useful t' them as was good enough fur you before, you can stop away from us altogether. I don't want Maud Grace t' get any fool notions in her head."

Once Janet would have turned upon such an attack, but somehow the spring of resistance was checked. After all what did it matter? But she took her mother's picture from the carpet-bag that night and hid it in her blouse with the long-silent whistle! More and more she remained at the lighthouse. Seldom, even, did she sail over to the dunes and never unless she felt strong enough to leave a pleasant impression upon Billy. Over all this, Mark Tapkins watched and brooded, and he slouched more dejectedly between the Light and his father's little home.

"I tell you!" he often confided to his inner self, "city life is blightin'! When I was there, it took the breath out o' me, an' now it's come t' Quinton, it's knocked a good many different from what they once was!" With this oft-repeated sentiment Mark reached his father's door one day and through it caught the smell of frying crullers. Old Pa Tapkins was realizing his harvest from the boarders by acting upon Janet's suggestion to Mark. From early sunrise until the going down of the sun, Pa, when not necessarily preparing food for three regular meals, was mixing, shaping, frying, and selling his now famous cakes. People, in passing, inhaled the fragrance of Pa's cooking and stopped to regale themselves and take samples to friends who were yet to be initiated. Pa and his crullers were becoming bywords, and they often helped out, where meals at the boarding place failed and conversation lacked humor.

As Mark stepped into the kitchen, not only his father, but Captain Billy hailed him.

"Hello! Cap'n Billy," cried Mark, "come off fur a change, have ye?"

"Yes, yes," Billy replied through a mouthful of cruller, hot enough to make an ordinary man groan with pain. "Yes, yes; I've come off t' see the doin's."

"Well, there is considerable goin's on," Mark nodded, and calmly helped himself to a cake that was still sizzling; "there don't seem t' be no signs of lettin' up on us!"

"Now, Markie!" purred Pa from the stove, "that ain't puttin' the case jest as it is. Looked at from some p'ints, we are the clutchers."

Pa was a mild little man with a round, innocent face, and flaxen hair rising in a curly halo about it. His china-blue eyes had all the trust and surprise of a newly awakened baby. Life had always been to Pa Tapkins a mild series of shocks, and he parried each statement and circumstance in order that he might haply recognize it if he ran across it again, or, more properly speaking, if it struck him a smarting blow again. Pa never ran at all. As nearly as any mortal can be stationary, Pa was; but in the nature of things, passing events touched him more or less sharply in their progress.

"It ain't all their doin's, Markie, now is it?"

"Like as not it ain't, Pa. Sold many crullers t'-day?"

"I've sold all I've made, up t' this batch, Markie, an' I've been putterin' over the heat since the mornin' meal."

"Well, I'll lay the things on fur the noon meal, Pa, you tend t' business."

"But you ain't slept, Markie. Up all night an' no sleep nex' day! 'T won't do, Markie, now will it?"

"I'll sleep, come night time." Mark seized his third almost boiling cruller and turned to Billy.

"You ain't seen Janet, hev you?"

Billy looked guilty. "No, an' I ain't a-goin' t' this trip. Mark, how is things at the Light?"

"Squally as t' Susan Jane. Seein' others spry while she's chained by the stroke ain't addin' t' Susan Jane's Christian qualities."

"Stormin' at Janet?"

"Janet comes in fur her share, but David gets the toughest blasts. I don't see how Davy weathers it, an' still keeps a song an' a smile."

"An' him doin' another man's stint, too," Pa put in, dropping a brown ring on the floor, spearing it adroitly again, and flipping it upon the paper-covered platter. "If William Henry Jones hadn't gone down in that squall thirty years ago, an' if Davy hadn't thought it was his duty t' carry out his mate's plans, I'm thinkin' Susan Jane might have been different an' Davy might not have had sich tormentin' experiences. Least, that is how it struck me thirty year back, an' it strikes me so yet."

Billy nodded appreciatively.

"'Tain't always wise t' tackle somebody else's job," Mark joined in, "that's what come t' me in the city. City jobs ain't fur you! that's what I said t' myself. Salt air was in my nostrils, the sound of the sea in my ears, an' I couldn't any more hear t' the teachin' of city ways, than the city folks can learn of us here on the coast."

Again Billy nodded. He felt his spirits rising as he looked upon this man of the world and knew him as a friend.

"Draw up, Pa and Cap'n Billy!" Mark had collected a large and varied repast. "Have some cold fowl, Cap'n, an' a couple o' 'taters. Lay hold of a brace o' them ears o' corn. Over half a yard long an' as near black as purple ever is. Inside they're white an' milky enough. Have some blackberry pie, 'long with yer fowl, Cap'n. 'T ain't every day you can get Pa's cookin'; an' I bleve in mixin' good victuals. It's what Nater does."

Billy took everything suggested and ate it indiscriminately, and this example was ably followed by his hosts.

"Mark!" Billy after a long but significant silence sat back in his chair and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, "Mark, I'm goin' t' ask ye t' jine me in a rather shady job. Do ye happen t' know the particular women painters as is usin' Janet fur a—modil?"

Mark strangled over a kernel of corn and stared, teary-eyed, at Billy.

"Modil?" he finally gasped, "modil? Why, Cap'n, that ain't no word t' tack ont' Janet. Modils ain't moral or decint. I learned that in th' city from a painter-chap as use t' come in t' the shop an' eat isters when he could afford it."

Billy's face lengthened.

"'Tis 'mong friends I speak?" Billy dropped his voice. Both men nodded. "Well, Janet is a modil t' some of them dirty-aproned women painters! An' I want t' see just how they've took her, an' what they calkerlate t' do with the picter! Andrew Farley has been modilin' fur them, an' Andy's 'count of how he looks in paint ain't pleasant. I don't know as I want Janet shown up in the city kinder onsightly."

During this explanation Mark's countenance had assumed an expression of intense suffering. Bits of gossip arose like channel stakes in the troubled water of his misery. Like the bits of red cloth which marked the stakes in the bay, Susan Jane's emphasis of such gossip fluttered wildly in this hour. Through the channel, clearly set by these signals, was a wide course leading direct to a certain hut upon the Hills of which silent, watchful Mark knew!

"She ain't no modil, Cap'n, don't say that!" he finally managed to get out; "that's jest scandalous gossip."

"She told me herself!" Billy brought his tilted chair to the floor; "an' I got t' keep this visit secret. But, since the gal ain't got no mother, I've got t' do double duty. Knowin' how up in city ways ye are, Mark, I thought maybe ye'd pilot me on this trip. I'm turrible clumsy with strangers, specially women, an' I want t' do what's right."

"'Tain't—a—woman!" This declaration was wrung from Mark.

"What's that?" Billy sprang from his chair.

"Now, Markie, do be keerful!" cautioned Pa, "don't make no statement ye can't stand by. Nation! that fat is burnin'!"

"I said, 'twarn't no woman painter as done Janet. If she has been a modil—an' 'twere you as said that—she's been one to a man!"

The horror on Billy's face was pitiful.

"Can you locate him?" he asked in trembling tones. Mark nodded.

"Come on, then!"

In silence the two departed. Pa hardly noticed them; the burning fat claimed his entire attention.

Mark strode ahead toward the Hills and Billy, with the swing of the lonely patrols, brought up the rear.

It was the dining hour and Quinton was almost deserted in the hot August noon.

"Don't let's get het up," advised Mark presently; "city folks is powerful clever 'bout keepin' cool inside an' out."

"I'm already het!" panted Billy.

"Let's take it easier;" Mark paused in the path, and wiped his streaming face. They did not speak again until Thornly's hut was almost at their feet. Billy's face was grim and threatening, but Mark's showed signs of doubt and wavering. His recollections of city calm and coolness were not uplifting in this emergency. Folks in town had always outwitted Mark by their calmness.

Thornly's door was set open to strangers and whatever air was stirring. He, himself, was sitting inside, his back to his coming guests and his eyes upon the unfinished picture upon the easel.

Remnants of a chafing-dish meal were spread upon a small table, and silence brooded over all. It was only when Mark and Billy stood at the door that Thornly turned. The look of expectancy died in his eyes as he saw the weather-beaten countenance of Billy, and the shamefaced features of Mark.

"I do not want any sitters, thank you," said he.

"We don't want t' set," Billy replied firmly and clearly.

"I beg your pardon," Thornly smiled pleasantly, "you see nearly all of them do. Won't you come in?"

"The two men stood spellbound before the easel." Page 117

"It's cooler outside," ventured Mark.

"There isn't much difference," said Thornly, rising courteously.

"I'm Cap'n Billy Morgan!" This statement appeared to interest Thornly immensely.

"I'm glad to meet you," he answered.

"Are ye a painter-man?" asked Billy.

"I've been dubbed that occasionally." Thornly laughed. "What can I do for you?"

"Did you ever have a—modil?" Mark broke in breathlessly, feeling he must help Billy out, no matter what his own feelings were.

"I've even been guilty of that!"

"Did ye ever have my Janet?"

Poor Billy's trouble, knowing no restraint of city ways or roundabout methods, rushed forth sharply.

Thornly changed color perceptibly.

"Come in," he urged, "the glare is really too painful."

The two awkwardly stepped inside. Then Mark's eyes fell upon the canvas.

"Cap'n!" he groaned, "look at this!" The two men stood spellbound before the easel, and Thornly watched them curiously.

"It's her!" muttered Billy, "it's her! Poor little thing! she's jest drifted without a hand upon the tiller." The visitors forgot Thornly.

"I didn't think I had more'n the right t' watch, Cap'n." Mark's voice was full of tears as he said this.

"Ye had the right t' shout out a call t' me, lad. You'd have done the like fur any little skiff you'd seen in danger." Then he turned upon Thornly. "What right hev ye got t' steal my gal's looks? An' what tricks hev ye used t' git 'em, an' her happiness 'long with 'em?"

Thornly winced. "Her happiness?" he asked helplessly, not knowing what else to say.

"Yes. Her happiness! Don't ye s'pose that I, what has watched her since she came int' port, watched her an' loved her, an' sot hopes on her, don't ye think I know the difference 'twixt her happiness an' the sham thing?"

"Good Lord!" breathed Thornly, "are you speaking truth?"

Billy drew himself up with a dignity Thornly shrank before.

"Thar ain't anythin' but the truth good enough t' use, when we're talkin' of my little gal!" he said quietly. He felt no need of Mark, nor knowledge of city ways.

Mark was still riveted before the picture. Slow tears were rolling down his twitching face. The calamity that had overtaken Janet was like death, and this lovely smiling face upon the canvas was but the dear memory of her!

"I never meant to harm her," said Thornly presently. "I cannot hope that you will understand; it has only recently come to me, the understanding. I have always thought the artist in me had a right to seize and make my own all that my eye saw that was beautiful. Lately the man in me has uprisen and shown me that I have been a fool—a fool and a thief!"

"That's what you are!" blubbered Mark, "that last's what you are! You've taken Janet's good name, you've taken her happiness—and you've taken her frum us!" Thornly's color rose, but a look at the speaker's distorted face hushed the angry words he was about to utter. He turned to Billy as to an equal.

"Captain Morgan," he said quietly, "I have done nothing to harm your daughter's good name, in the eyes of any man or woman! That I swear before God. In that I yearned to make her wonderful beauty add to my reputation, I plead my blind selfishness; but above all I wanted to give to the world a pleasure that you can never realize, I think, and I believe your daughter is great enough to give all, that I ruthlessly took without asking, to help me give the world that picture!" His own eyes turned to the pure, exquisite face.

"Like as not she would!" Billy replied, "like as not she would. Was there ever a woman as wasn't willin' t' fling herself away, if a man was reckless enough t' p'int the path out t' her? An' do ye think I'm goin' t' let ye take my Janet's dear face int' that hell-place of a city; an' have folks starin' at her, folks what ain't fit t' raise their eyes t' her? Ain't ye done her enough wrong without takin' her sacrifice, if she's willin' t' make it?"

"Good God, man! I'm willing to do all I can. That picture is worth hundreds of dollars to me and untold pleasure to many besides, but I am willing to do with it just what you think best."

"Then cut it open, Mark!" Billy's tone rose shrilly. "Slash it top an' bottom an' don't leave a trace o' Janet."

Mark drew from his pocket a huge clasp knife. He trembled as he opened it and stood back to strike the first blow.

"Stop!" Thornly sprang between him and the canvas. "Stop! I could easier see some savage devastate the beauty of these Hills. Wait! I swear to leave it as it is. I swear that no eyes but ours shall rest upon it; but you shall not destroy it!"

Command and power rang in Thornly's voice. Mark wavered. Billy hung his head.

"Arter all," he groaned, "we ain't none o' us got the final right. Janet's my gal, but her beauty is hers, an' God Almighty's. Keep the picter till such time as my Janet can judge an' say. The time will come when she'll get her bearin's, with full instructions, an' then she'll judge among us all!"

The two rough men turned toward the door. "When she tells ye," Billy paused to say, "she'll be wiser than what she is t'-day, poor little critter!"

Thornly watched the men, in stern silence, until they passed from sight; then he went back to the easel.

"Pimpernel," he whispered brokenly, "poor little wild flower, out of place among us all!" He drew a heavy cloth over the radiant face, and with reverent hand placed the canvas against the wall in the darkest corner of the room.

Late that afternoon Billy's boat put off for the Station in the teeth of a rising gale and amid ominous warnings of thunder.

Susan Jane grew more irritable and nervous as the storm rose. She feared storm and lightning.

"Janet, ain't that Billy's sail crossin' the bay?" she said. Janet came to the window.

"Yes, it is," she faltered; "and he's going on!"

"Well, what do you suppose? Ain't he got t' get back by sundown? 'T would be a pretty pass if he'd come off at sundown."

"But he's been off all day, likely as not!" Janet's lip quivered.

"Well, s'pose he has. Are you goin' t' be one of them tormentin' women who is always naggin' a man about what he's doin' an' what he ain't a-doin'? Where's David?"

"He's gone up into the Light, Susan Jane."

The woman turned anxiously toward the window. "It's an awful storm risin', Janet. Wind off sea, but changin' every minute. Draw the shade. I'm fearin' the ocean will rise high enough fur us t' see the breakers over the dunes! I ain't seen the ocean fur thirty odd years, an' I ain't goin' t' now!" Her voice rose hysterically, like a frightened child's. "I jest won't see the ocean!" Janet pulled the green shade down, and hid from her own aching eyes the vanishing sight of Billy's struggling boat, but her loving heart went with it as, spurning the wind and darkness, it made for the dunes and duty!

"All day!" the girl thought; "all day, and not to let me know! Oh, Cap'n Daddy, what mischief have you been up to?" The quivering smile rose over the hurt, but anxiety lay deep in the troubled heart.

A crash of thunder rent the air! A blinding flash of lightning turned the black bay to a molten sea. Janet could see it through the glass of the outer door in the entry.

"Janet!"

"Yes, Susan Jane."

"Come away from the draught! I think you might know, how if you got struck by lightnin' I couldn't do a blessed thing but look at you." Janet came into the darkened room.

"Light the lamp!" Susan commanded. "I ain't goin' t' save oil, when I'm in this state. Oh! Janet,"—a splintering crash shook the house,—"did you ever hear the like?"

"It's pretty bad, Susan Jane!" But the girl was thinking of the little boat struggling on the bay, the strong hand upon the tiller, and the faithful heart, fearless in the midst of danger.

"Janet, since you ain't got no nerves, can you read t' me an' sort o' drown the storm? I'm powerful shaken. I can't run if the house is struck; I can't do nothin' but jest suffer." The woman was crying miserably.

"I'll read to you, Susan Jane; and the storm's passing. I can count now."

"How many? How many, Janet?" A blinding flash showed around the green curtain's edge and dimmed the light of the kerosene lamp.

"One—two." The awful crash stilled the word.

"'Tain't fur enough off, Janet, to trust any! Oh! God help me! If I could only put my hands over my ears!" But the poor, helpless hands lay white and shrivelled in the woman's lap.

"Here, Susan Jane. Shut your eyes tight and lean your head upon my shoulder. There! Now when I see the flash I will cover your ears. That will help."

"Janet,"—a mildness stole into the peevish, whining voice,—"Janet, times is, when I see that Billy warn't all wrong in his bringin' of you up. He's sort o' left the softness like a baby in you." The hidden eyes did not see the glare, but the thin form quivered as the girl's firm hands were pressed over the sensitive ears.

"It's kinder muffled-like," panted the woman. "In between, Janet, can you say any of it?"

"Your chapter, Susan?"

"Yes. David knows the most of it, an' nights, bad nights, he says it when he ain't so plumb sleepy he can't."

"I'll say what I can, Susan Jane." The gray head nestled close to the strong young shoulder. The nagging woman rested, breathing deep. The fierce storm was rolling away; darkness was giving place, outside, to the sunset glow which, during all the terror and gloom, had lain waiting.

"'And I saw a new heaven, and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea.'" Janet's voice repeated the words slowly, tenderly. Their beauty held her fancy.

"Davy explains that"—Susan's muffled words came dully—"this way. He says the old happy time, when William Henry an' me was young an' lovin', you know about that?"

"Yes, Susan Jane."

"Well, that was the first heaven an' earth fur us, an' it's passed away!" The woman was sobbing as a frightened child sobs when fear and danger have passed and relief has opened the flood gates.

"I don't know how William Henry is goin' t' bide a new heaven without any sea, Janet; he sot a lot by the sea! Always a-goin' out when it was the wildest an' trickiest! He use t' say, he'd like t' go to glory by water, an' he did, he did! I wasn't none older than you be, Janet, when he went down, an' the cruel waves kept him, kept him forever!"

"There, there, Susan Jane, you know they did not keep the part you loved. That part is safe where there is no more sea!" Solemnly the girl spoke as she smoothed the throbbing head.

"Yes! Like as not you're right, Janet. An' he'll find other comfort in that heaven. He was the patientest, cheerfulest body; an' never a quick word fur me. Janet, don't you ever tell, but I'm afraid t' see the ocean! I'm afraid, because I'm always a-thinkin' his dead white face might come up t' me—on a wave!"

"Poor Susan Jane! It will never come to harm you. I would not fear. I love the sea. If it had been my William Henry, I should have watched for his face shining in the beautiful curly waves, and had I seen it, I would have stretched out my arms to him, and we would have gone away—to glory together!"

"Not if the face was a—dead face, Janet!" A horror rang in the words.

"Somehow," the girl replied, "I could never think it dead, if it came that way. 'And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.'"

"That's it, Janet," Susan Jane's voice trailed sleepily; "the former things are the things what has the tears, an' the pains, an' the hurts; an' they must pass away before there can be any kind of a heaven that's worth while. I wonder—" drearily, "I wonder how it will seem when I ain't got any pains, nor any tears, an' when there ain't any more black nights to think about them in? I'll feel terrible lost just at first. It will be about as hard fur me t' get use t' doin' without them, as it will fur William Henry t' do without the sea. I guess we'll all have considerable t' do t' learn t' get along without the former things, whatever they was. Maybe some of the joy will be in learnin' all over. Janet, I'm powerful sodden with weariness. Weariness is one of the former things!" A whimsical humor stirred the words. "Sometimes the former things get t' be dreadful foolish day after day."

"Let me carry you to the bedroom, Susan." Janet had assumed this duty in order to spare David, the nights he must go up aloft. The thin, light body was no burden to the sturdy girl.

"There, Susan, and see the storm is past!" The evening glow was shining in the bedroom window. "And I will undress you, just as easy as easy can be, and put you so, upon the cool bed! The shower has cleared the air beautifully. Now are you comfortable, Susan Jane?"

"I'm more comfortable than what I've been fur a time past. Leave the shade up t' the top, Janet; I like to see the gleam of Davy's Light when it is dark. I like t' think how it helps folks find their way to the harbors where they would be. Janet, that was a terrible queer thing you said about the face in the wave."

The girl was folding the daily garments of the tired woman and placing them where David's bungling hands could find them for another day's service.

"What was that, Susan Jane?" She stood in the fair full light of the parting day.

"About it not being a dead face! That's been the horror of it, all these years; it has always been a dead an' gone face! That's why I hated the sea. But if"—and a radiance spread over the thin, wasted features—"if it should be that William Henry came back t' me, alive an' smilin' as he always did, why, like as not, I'd put my arms out—" then she paused and the voice broke; "no, I could not put my arms out—but I could smile like I've most forgotten how t' do, an' I could go with William Henry, anywhere, same as any other lovin' woman! I never thought about his face bein' alive in the wave! But, do you know, it's a real pleasant idee, that of seein' the sea again an' William Henry a-smilin' an' wavin' his arms like he use t' when he was bathin'! I declare it's a real grateful thought. Janet!"

"Yes, Susan."

"I wish you'd go up int' the Light after you've cleared the settin' room, an' tell Davy good night! I forgot t' say it when he started up. We'd had some difference 'bout money; least, Davy had, I never have any different idee about it. It's him as changes. Go get the box, Janet, an' put it under the bed. If it wasn't fur me, I guess Davy would know!"

It was after sunset, when Janet, hearing Susan Jane's even breathing, felt herself free. She stretched her arms above her head and so eased the tension. The manner of bearing life's burdens by the people of the dunes was but an acquired talent with her. The first and natural impulse of the girl's nature was to cry out against care and trouble, to make a noise, and act! It was second nature only that had taught her to assume silently and bear secretly whatever of unpleasantness life presented.

"Oh! Cap'n Daddy," she had once cried to Billy, when something had stirred her childish depths, "why don't we yell, and kick and scare it off?"

"'Tain't sensible with them as lives near the sea, Janet," Billy had calmly returned. "The sea teaches a powerful pinted lesson 'long o' them lines. Troubles is like the sea. When they is the worst, they do all the shoutin' an' roarin' themselves, an' ye jest might as well pull in yer sail an' lie low. When they is past, an' the calm sets in, 'tis plain shallowness t' use yerself up then. Folks in cities don't learn this lesson; they ain't got no such teacher, an' that's why they wear out sooner, an' have that onsettled air. They think noise an' bustle o' their makin' can do away with troubles, but it can't, Janet. So like as not, the sooner ye learn, the better."

Janet thought of this hard lesson now as she stretched her strong young body, and quelled the rebellious cry upon her lips.

"I'll go up and bid Davy good night," she whispered half aloud. Then lower: "Good night, my Cap'n Daddy! You've reached the dunes safely, but you'll have to own up some day!" She waved in the direction of the Station.

"How dark the water looks!" she suddenly cried; "stars in plenty—where is Davy's Light?"

White and fear-filled, she sprang toward the stairs and ran lightly upward. Slower she went, after the third landing; anxiety, added to weariness, stayed the eager feet. If the Light were not burning, what then? Just below the lamp and gallery was a tiny room with a table, chair, small stove, and little glass lamp. Here, between the times that David inspected his Light, he sat to read or think. As Janet reached the place the darkness was so dense she could see nothing, but with outstretched hands she was feeling her way to the door leading to the steps into the Light, when she touched David's gray head, as it lay upon his arms folded upon the table! He was breathing deeply and audibly, and the girl's touch did not arouse him. Whatever the matter was with David, Janet's first thought was of his sacred and neglected duty. She ran on, and into the lamp. She struck the match and set the blaze to the wick; then, when it was well lighted, she darted outside and withdrew the cloth. The belated beams shot into the night as if they had gained strength and power from the forced delay.

"God keep the government from knowing!" breathed the girl; "it was only a little while, and it ought not to count after all the faithful years."

Weak from fear and hurry, Janet retraced her steps to David. He was still sleeping as peacefully as a child. Under his folded arms was an open book. Janet recognized it as one that Mr. Devant had given to David recently, a little book of poems of the sea, poems with a ring and rhythm in them that bore the golden thoughts to Davy's song-touched heart. The man had fallen asleep like a happy boy, forgetting, for the first time in his life, his duty.

Janet lighted the little lamp upon the stand, and drew up a stool. The minutes ticked themselves away upon Davy's big, white-faced clock which hung against the wall. Eight, eight thirty, eight forty-five! Then David sat up and stared with wide-opened eyes right at Janet. A moment of bewilderment shook his awakening senses; then he gave his sigh and laugh.

"By gum!" he said, "jest fur an instint I thought I'd forgot my Light!"

"It's all right, Davy," Janet nodded cheerfully.

"Course!" Davy returned the nod; "course, ye don't s'pose I'd light my lamp fust, do ye?"

"Never, Davy!"

"It's bad enough t' be napping. Like as not the government would turn me out, an' with reason, if it caught on t' that. I don't know but I ought t' confess. But Lord! I was that worn, 'long with Susan Jane's bein' more ailin' than usual, an' the thickness of the air with the shower, that arter I saw everythin' was shipshape, I guess I flopped some. I'll forgive myself this once; but if it happens again, Davy Thomas, yer'll write t' the government sure as yer born an' tell 'em what a blubber-head ye air."

Janet laughed, and stretched her arms out until she clasped David's rough hands. "I'll go up an' take a look!" said the man; "stop till I come down, Janet, I've got somethin' t' tell ye."

"I came up to tell you," the girl called after him, "that Susan Jane sent good night to you."

"She did that?" Davy paused upon the step and his face shone in the dull light. Janet nodded. Then Davy went to inspect his lamp.

"But to us He gives the keepin'
Of the lights along the shore!"

Janet smiled as the cheerful words floated back to her. Presently David returned.

"Everythin' is as it should be," he chuckled; "clear night, but changin' breeze, an' the Light doin' its proper duty! Janet, while I slept, I had the durndest dream, I can't get rid of it. I read once how the surest way to get rid of an idee was t' dump it on another."

"Dump away, Davy."

"It made me feel kinder like I did long ago; an' then Susan Jane sendin' that good night up, sort o' fitted in. Janet, I've been dreamin' about William Henry Jones."

Janet nodded. William Henry seemed recently to have assumed shape and form to her. He had been but a name in the past.

"I saw him a comin' up the stairs jest as plain as day, like he use t' come when he came off, an' ran up t' me, if I happened t' be haulin' ile up t' the balcony, or cleanin' the lamp, or what not. His face was shinin' same as it use t'. By gum! I never see such a face as William Henry had! It always seemed to be lit from inside. 'I've come fur Susy,' he said. He was the only one as ever called her that, an' I ain't heerd it since he went down int' the sea that mornin' he was bluefishin'. 'I've come fur Susy, an' I want t' thank ye fur carin' fur her like what ye have." Them was his words, as true as gospil. An' they was turrible comfortin'. Fur, Janet, I ain't told it t' another soul, not even t' Billy, but I always loved Susan Jane—fur myself. When William Henry won her, I wasn't ever goin' t' let on, but when he got drownded an' Susan had t' hustle t' keep life in her body, I jest out an' begged t' take care of her—fur William Henry! I told that lie, Janet, because I darsn't tell her I wanted her fur myself. I didn't never care whether she loved me or not, after I knowed she loved William Henry, anyway; but when he went, I wanted t' take care of her an' keep her from the hardest knocks, an' I wanted it fur jest myself! After a while I talked her int' it. She warn't never strong, an' work an' grievin' made her an easy mark fur sufferin' an' so she let me take care of her! But always it has laid heavy on my mind that I hadn't acted jest fair t' William Henry. An' sometimes, when I've been settin' out on the balcony, freshenin' up, I've planned it all out how I'd see him a comin' over the dunes some day,—comin' out o' the sea what swallowed him, with an awful look of anger on his smilin' face, 'cause I'd got his Susy on false pretences, as ye might say. It's got kind o' wearin' on me o' late, but Lord! when I saw William Henry t'-night, he was more shinin' an' smilin' than ever. An' when he thanked me like what he did, I nigh busted with pleasure. An' then as you told me 'bout Susan Jane's good night, I jest sent up a prayer out there on the balcony, a prayer of gratefulness fur all my blessin's.

"Dreams is queer stuff, Janet. 'Tain't all as should be counted; but then, ye don't count all the folks an' happenin's that pass ye in yer wakin' hours. But when a dream, or a person, or an idee comes along, as means a comfort or a strengthener, I take it that it is a sort o' duty t' clutch it, an' make it real. When ye ain't got nothin' better, dreams is powerful upliftin' at times. Gum!" David drew his shoulders up and plunged his hands in his pockets, as if about to draw comfort from their depths.

"Gum! Janet. 'Tain't often I get duty and pleasure mixed, but ye stop here, an' after I take another look at the lamp, I'm goin' t' run down an' say good night t' Susan Jane. I know how she's lyin' awake, thinkin' an' thinkin' of the past. Dreams don't seem t' come much t' Susan Jane."

David paid his visit to the Light, then descended the stairs, while Janet took up the book of poems and turned the pages idly. David's dream and all that had happened seemed to still her. How long she sat by the dim lamplight she took no thought to find out. The words of poem after poem passed under her eyes unheedingly. Once she went into the Light, saw that all was well, and came back to the book. Presently David emerged from the stairway. Janet was facing him, and the expression of his eyes brought her to her feet, and to his side.

"Davy, what is it?" she demanded.

"He has come!"

"Who?"

"William Henry! He's taken her!"

"No, no! Davy, it is not so, she is only asleep." David shook his head and his eyes had a dumb agony in them.

"'T ain't so, Janet! An' she's smilin' like she use t'. I ain't seen that smile on her face in over thirty year. That's the way she use t' look when she heard me comin' in the gloamin', an' thought it was him! No, Janet, she wears—William Henry's smile!"

Janet darted past him, but he stayed her. "I want ye should sit by her till sun up. There's a brisk storm settin' in agin, an' 't ain't fit fur ye t' go fur any one; an' I've got t' mind the Light. Stay 'long of her, Janet. I'm glad she ain't got t' suffer any more, or nothin'!" A sob choked the deep voice and seemed to follow the fleeing girl as she ran down the winding stairs.

Davy had placed the living-room lamp upon the table by Susan Jane's bed. By its glow, Janet looked upon the woman under the gaudy patchwork quilt. Apparently she had not moved since Janet had placed her there. Without a struggle or pain she had gone forth.

"Oh! Susy," the old forgotten name slipped from the girl's quivering lips. "Oh! Susy, I just believe you saw his live, shining face on an incoming wave! And when the wave went out, it took you both to glory! But, oh! my poor, dear, lonely Davy!" Then the bright head bowed upon the coverlid. "Susy, oh, Susy! I am so glad I held you while you were frightened. If I hadn't I should never have forgiven myself. It was all I could do for Davy, and William Henry, and you!"

CHAPTER VIII

Susan Jane's funeral cast all other events into the shade. It was the all-important topic of conversation and interest. David alone really grieved for her; the others had suffered too keenly from Susan's tongue and complaints to feel any honest sorrow in her passing. Her giving them the opportunity for so comfortable and gratifying a funeral was, perhaps, the one thing she could have done to cause them to respect her memory. Janet saw poor departed Susan in a belated halo of romance, and Janet was in the mood to be deeply touched. She no longer saw Susan old, helpless, and ugly, full of small meannesses and sour criticism: she saw her only as the young girl, little older than herself, for whom long ago William Henry had always a smile, and a gentle nickname. It was beautiful, to the trouble-touched girl of the dunes, to think that the old lover came back for his sweetheart and paused, before claiming his treasure, to thank poor Davy for his years of patient love and service.

"And he understands, I know," Janet murmured, placing some autumn flowers near Susan Jane, "he is glad that dear Davy could have the joy that seemed to us all a burden. That's the way it is when the 'former things have passed away,'"—the girl's tears fell among the flowers,—"such things do not matter then; but here they do! Oh, they matter most of all!"

Mrs. Jo G., her boarders gone and her body weary from the summer's strain, gathered her neglected social charms together for Susan Jane's funeral. There would be a reunion of all Quinton that day. There would be a repast worthy the minister's donation. Eliza Jane Smith had offered her services as housekeeper pro tem.

"An' a mercy, too!" snapped Mrs. Jo G., lapping a plaid shirt waist over her scrawny chest. "Janet's 'bout as useful at such times as a flounder. Lord save us! how I have fell away this season! We've cleared two hundred dollars, an' about all my heft. Maud Grace!"

"Yes, Ma!" Maud Grace appeared, bleached out and thin, her eyes red from weeping and her voice shaky.

"What in land's name is the matter with you?" Mrs. Jo G. paused to gaze at the sodden face of the girl she had sacrificed much for during the season.

"Susan Jane!" faltered Maud.

"You ain't mournin' fur her, are you?"

"No, ma'am. But I don't want t' go t' her buryin'. I ain't got no appetite fur corpses, they always make me faint."

"Well, you're goin', faint or no faint! So look after the children, an' get them ready. Land of love! I should think the sound of the stillness up at the Light, after Susan Jane's clatter, would 'bout knock David out. I will say fur him, that he's earned his reward. Do stop snivellin', Maud Grace! You look as if you, 'stead of me, had frizzled over the cook stove all summer! It's bad enough to think you didn't land a beau, without lookin' as if you felt it! That Janet's goin's on hasn't served her neither, but she ain't goin' t' gloat over you while you've got a ma what can steer you straight. You get int' your best clothes and perk up a bit; you can boss it over Janet. Her name is a soundin' cymbal or soon will be! She's got her mother in her strong. It's sort o' wrung out of me, since Janet's acted up so, though I had meant t' keep my own knowledge."

"I don't know as she's done anything much, Ma; jest trapsed on the Hills some an' turned her nose up at boarders mostly. Mr. Fitch said,"—a weak color flushed Maud's face for an instant,—"Mr. Fitch said she felt herself high an' mighty. But that ain't no crime." Mr. Fitch's name was one with which to conjure in the Gordon household.

"Like as not he was runnin' after her!" Mrs. Jo G. was adjusting her memorial pin, a dreary piece of jewelry, composed of the hair from the heads of several dead and gone relatives; "but Janet wasn't after his kind. She was a modil!" The woman whispered this information, glancing hurriedly at the small children whom Maud was now getting into their clothes.

"What's that?" whispered the girl in return. The hints about Janet were gathering force in order to break after the excitement of the funeral was over. But Maud, with anxieties of her own, had heeded them but slightly until now.

"It's a thing no Quintonite ain't goin' t' stand fur!" quivered Mrs. Jo G. "'T ain't proper. I guess Cap'n Billy had better have kept her over to the Station."

"But what is it?" insisted Maud, her voice almost drowned in the shriek of one of the twins, whose long thin hair she had jerked by way of emphasis. Under cover of the scream, the mother replied:

"'T ain't fit t' talk about 'fore a self-respectin' girl. But I don't want you should have anything t' do with Janet after t'-day."

"Spell it!" pleaded Maud, shaking her younger sister into a sobful semi-silence.

"F-i-g-g-e-r!" spelled Mrs. Jo G. in an ominous murmur. Maud Grace's flat, expressionless face took on a really imbecile blankness.

"Figger!" she repeated over and over. "Figger! That's worse t' understand than modil. I don't see why you can't talk plain talk, Ma!"

"'Cause I told you. Whisper or shoutin', 't ain't the thing fur plain talk; but I wanted t' give you a weapon in case Janet takes t' crowin' over you—an' she ain't above it. She's wuss off than you be!" With this, Mrs. Jo G. marshalled her host, and set out for the Light.

It was late in the day, after poor Susan Jane had been laid away in the little graveyard back of the white church, that David slowly mounted the lighthouse stairs, pausing as usual upon every landing. There was no song upon his lips now. For the first time in thirty years, Davy felt that song was impossible. All smiling and many-colored the landscape spread before him at every opening, but the man sighed without the laugh.

"The higher up I git," he panted, "it seems I feel heavier hearted. I ain't got nothin' now, nor ever more shall have. I've had my turn, an' when I reach t' other side I can't expect poor William Henry t' share her with me. Thirty years I had her, an' course I can't complain. I ought t' be thankful William Henry didn't begrudge me them years. An' I am thankful! Yes, I am thankful, an' somehow I believe the good God ain't goin' t' let my heaven be blighted. In some way, He's goin' t' set it straight fur us three over there! Maybe Susan Jane'll kind o' hanker arter the care I gave. Maybe she's got kinder use t' it; and maybe, since there ain't any marriage, or givin' in marriage, maybe she'll have love enough fur us both!"

This conclusion brought a joy with it that radiated the honest face.

"That's the way out!" he murmured, standing upon the little balcony and facing a sunset so gorgeous that the world seemed full of glory. "It's come t' me as plain as William Henry come three nights back. It's borne in upon me, that most all of life's riddles get answered, when ye get up high enough t' leave hamperin' things below. Downstairs the loss of Susan Jane kills everything but the heartache; but up here," Davy walked around the Light, and looked tenderly at the land and sun-touched bay, "up here, where Susan Jane never came, I can see clearer, bein' accustomed t' havin' it out alone with God, so t' speak, fur the last ten years!"

And now the sun was gone! Its gladsome farewell to Davy in the Light made the smile gather on the wrinkled face.

"Your turn'll come," he said smilingly in the old words, "your turn'll come." Then he went down to the little waiting room, lighted his own lamp, and took the book of poems from the table.

He was ready for his next duty! He was soon lost to all but the swinging thought in the ringing lines. Davy was himself again! Then, suddenly, he was aware of a hand upon his shoulder. So tense were his nerves that had he looked up and seen either William Henry or Susan Jane, he would not have been surprised. But it was Janet, and her eyes were full of brooding love.

"Davy," she said, "do you remember how I used to play 'hungry man' with you, when I was a little girl?"

"I do that, Janet!" The cheerful, old face beamed. "'Have ye had any supper?' yer use t' ask, 'have ye had any supper, Mr. Hungry Man?'"

"Let's play now!" The girl laughed gently. "Have you had any supper, Mr. Hungry Man? Why, I can see you just as plain as plain, Davy! You used to stand inside the lamp and the lenses made you long and thin and dreadfully starved looking."

"But once I got outside the glass I plumped up quick enough!" Davy returned. He saw the look in Janet's eyes that called for bravery in him. She was pale and pitiful, and he turned comforter at once.

"It's all dependin' upon the position ye take, how ye look t' others. Once ye get outside of most things, ye straightway freshen up an' get likelier lookin'!"

"You've had no supper to-night, Mr. Hungry Man!" Janet put her face close to Davy's.

"I ain't sufferin' fur food, Janet."

"You never own to any suffering, Davy, but look here!" She ran to the landing and brought in a large tray, neatly spread with food. "It isn't leavings," she explained, placing the dishes before him; "Eliza Jane's cooking is for company, mine for Davy and me! I made the biscuits myself. Aren't they flaky?"

"They are that!" nodded Davy; "flaky don't do them justice; they're flakes. An' that coffee! By gum! Janet, that smells like coffee!"

"Davy, it is coffee!" The girl was glowing, and her eyes shone blue in the lamplight. "I'm going to eat with you, Davy,"—she drew up a stool,—"eat and talk." Davy fell to with a suddenly awakened appetite, but Janet watched him above her clasped hands. Presently she said:

"Davy, who is going to—to—" She was about to say, "keep house for you," but, recalling Susan Jane's helplessness, she said instead, "who is going to keep you from being awfully lonely, now?"

"Why, Janet,"—Davy's full mouth hampered his speech,—"I reckon I'll have t' stay lonely straight on t' the end. I've had my life."

"Davy, will you share me with Cap'n Billy?" Davy gulped his mouthful and tilted his chair back.

"I'm a masterful hand at sharin' folks, Janet, but some one 'sides Billy may have something t' say as t' this bargain. There's Mark, now."

"No, Davy, there is no one, and that's the end of it! I'm a—well, a failure in getting anything to do from strangers, and so I thought if you would let me, I'd share with you and Billy, and by working very hard I'd make my board and keep." The sweet face quivered.

"Ain't the paintin' business paid, Janet?" Davy, during sleep-filled days and lonely nights up aloft, had caught no drifting gossip to disturb him.

"No, it hasn't paid!" The girl drooped forward wearily.

"Billy said ye was helpin' a woman painter."

"The women have all gone now, Davy."

"That's the wust of foreign trade," comforted David. "Ye can't depend on it."

"No, but I mean to be a good housekeeper, Davy. I am going to make you and my Cap'n Billy Daddy just cosy. I reckon I'm better fitted for home trade."

"Like as not, Janet, like as not. Most women are, if they only get convinced 'fore it's too late. Well, I'll be powerful thankful t' have ye around. 'T ain't any way fur a man t' live, without the woman's touch. Sometimes I've fancied that's what makes women restless. Men don't credit them with 'nough importance."

"You've eaten a fine supper, Mr. Hungry Man!"—Davy had eaten it all,—"and now I'm going downstairs to make things homey. I wish the sun rose earlier; good night, Davy!" She bent and kissed his seamed and rugged cheek.

"Good night, Janet, an' God bless ye!"

At every window on the way down the girl stopped to look out at the stars that were thick in the early autumn gloaming. She was aware of a lack of joy in life—one has to know sorrow and trouble to recognize and classify it clearly. Knowledge was coming slowly to Janet. Hope had buoyed her up, the hope that Thornly would let her prove that she was stronger and braver than that silly creature he had once thought her, but, as time dragged on and no call came from the hut upon the Hills, hope died. Then she had seen Thornly drive past her one day with that white girl from Bluff Head. The pale, exquisite face had suddenly grown scarlet at the sight of Janet by the wayside, and Thornly had stared right ahead, taking no heed! Since that day the lack of joy had grown apace.

She had gone to the hut upon the Hills and hung the tiny whistle upon the door latch. She would never call him again! She had not looked for the key; she had not thought of entering. No longer had she a right there.

Billy had deferred his explanations to the girl after his visit to the hut; the sudden death of Susan Jane had postponed the day.

At the foot of the lighthouse stairs Janet paused and held her breath. Some one was moving about the rooms! Some one with a candle, for the flickering shadows rose and fell upon the inner chamber wall. The room in which Susan Jane had died! No fear of a robber stirred Janet, the time had not come when Quinton must fear that. It could not be Mark Tapkins. He might be foolish enough to use his "off night" haunting the Light—his actions were curious of late—but had it been Mark, he would have been sitting patiently on the outer steps. Janet waited a minute and then went noiselessly into the sitting room, and tiptoed to the bedroom door. Then she started back, nearly dropping the tray of empty dishes. The intruder was Maud Grace. She held a lighted candle, and she was hunting, evidently, for something, for she looked under the bed, in each drawer, in the closet; and at last she got down upon the floor and thrust her hand beneath the bedclothes! It was not her actions, alone, that startled Janet, but the dumb look of misery upon the pale, stupid face.

"Maud Grace!"

The crouching girl gave a muffled cry and then sat upright, clasping her hands closely.

"What are you looking for?" It seemed an odd way to put the question. It sounded as if Maud were in her own room and had only misplaced some article of clothing.

"Her money!" The words were clear and hard. "Susan Jane's box! I know what you think, Janet, you think I'm a thief! But I've got—to—have money, an' I'll pay it back!"

"Come out in the sitting room, Maud. I'll light the lamp and then we can talk."

The calmness of tone and words gave the girl upon the floor courage to rise and go into the next room. There she sat down in Susan's old rocker and waited until Janet made a light. Then they faced each other, Janet taking her place upon the horsehair sofa.

"You're just as bad as me!" cried Maud suddenly. The steady look Janet bent upon her angered and repelled her. "You ought t' understand how 't is."

"I don't know what you mean," Janet replied, "but I'm not bad enough to steal a dead woman's money."

Maud turned a bluish white and her misery-filled eyes fell.

"I had t' have money. I darn't ask Pa or Ma; I can't tell anybody, but I've got t' have money to go away. I could have sent it back, somehow, once I got away!"

"Where are you going?" Janet's voice had the ring of scorn in it, though she tried to think kindly.

"Ah! you needn't put on them airs!" Maud was trying to keep the tears back. "You ain't any too good with your modillin', an' you—you—a figger!"

This did not have the desired or anticipated effect upon Janet. She looked puzzled.

"Somehow you sound as if you were talking in your sleep, Maud Grace," she said, "you don't seem to have any sense. But you've got to explain about the money!"

At this Maud sprang from the chair and flung herself beside Janet. She must have help; and this girl, doubted by all the moral village folks, was her one hope in a desolate hour.

"I've got t' go after him!" she sobbed.

"After him?" Janet could not free herself from the clinging arms.

"Yes, Mr. Fitch. Ah! Janet, if you was good like all the rest, you couldn't understand, but all day I've been thinkin' how you would stand up fur me if you knowed! He made love t' me, Mr. Fitch did, an' now he's gone, an' he don't write, an' I know he's never comin' back. Somethin' tells me. An' oh! Janet, I've got t' have him! I have, I have! I only meant t' take the money till I got to him. I found his card in his bedroom after he went. He didn't tell me true where he lived, but the card's all right. An' I've got t' go!" The girl's thin voice was hoarse with emotion. She clung closer, and her breath came hard and quick.

A loathing filled Janet as she listened, a loathing made bitter by the insinuation of her similarity to this poor, cringing creature beside her.

"You don't want him if he doesn't want you, do you?" she asked slowly.

"I do that!" Maud's tone was doggedly miserable.

"Even if he is trying to get away from you?" The memory of the weak, boyish boarder at Mrs. Jo G.'s added force to this question.

"Yes!"

"Then, shame to you, Maud Grace! I wouldn't say such a thing as that if I were to die!"

"Maybe"—the wretched girl groaned—"maybe you ain't just like me. Somehow I can't think you are; but, Janet, it's worse than dyin', this is. I've got t' go!"

The poor, pleading face was raised to Janet, but its dumb agony met no understanding emotion. A stir outside caused both girls to tremble with fright.

"I've heard every word you've said!" Mark Tapkins stood in the doorway opening upon the porch. "I was a settin' out there, sort a-watchin' an' thinkin' o' other things an' not noticin' what was passin', till all of a suddint it come t' me, that I had been a listenin' an' takin' in what wasn't intended fur me. I'm glad I did!" His slow face lifted proudly. "I'm glad I was used, so t' speak, fur this end. Maud Grace, you ain't got any call t' bother Janet no more. I understand you!" His eyes rested upon the forlorn girl and she shrank as before fire. "I understand, an' this is man's work. You come along home, an' t'-morrer you give me that card of his'n, an' I'll travel up t' town, an' fetch him back!"

"Mark!" Janet was on her feet, her eyes blazing, "you mustn't help her in this foolish business. You have no right to interfere. You have no right here! She shall not make herself so ridiculous as to send for a man who is trying to get away!"

Mark looked at her gently, patiently.

"Sho! Janet," he soothed, "you leave things you don't understand t' them as does. I'm goin' t' fetch that feller back. I know his kind, the city breeds 'em! Maybe the bracin' air down here will help him. Come along, Maud Grace, it's nateral enough fur me t' take you home frum Janet's." Janet made no further effort to change Mark's intention; and he and Maud went away together.

When Janet heard them close the garden gate, she went into the bedroom, took the money box, that poor Maud had so diligently sought, from the top shelf of the closet, and put it in a bureau drawer; then she turned the key in the drawer for the first time in all the years.

CHAPTER IX

"Well, it's a relief to me, Dick, to know that you do know!" Mr. Devant shrugged his shoulders, and laughed lightly. "Katharine and I have had a sneaking desire to ask you if you'd found us out, but we waited for you to make the first move."

"I'm slow to move in any game," Thornly replied. "I rather think it comes from my chess training. When a child begins that pastime, as you might say, in his cradle, with such a teacher as father, it's apt to influence his character."

"Exactly. Have a cigar, Dick; it's beastly lonely to puff alone."

"Thanks, no. I've smoked too much in my hut on the Hills. Being alone always drives me to a cigar."

The two men sat in the library at Bluff Head. A fire of driftwood crackled on the hearth and a stiff wind roared around the house.

"Of course we had no right to enter your studio,"—Mr. Devant spoke slowly between the puffs of smoke,—"except the right that says all is fair in love and war. I admit that I was shaking in my boots that day for fear you might come in upon us. Katharine was braver than I. You must own, Dick, that you hadn't treated the girl quite fair."

"I do not grant that, Mr. Devant. I think Katharine had no cause for complaint. Good Lord! a doctor's wife might quite as well feel herself aggrieved because her husband's dissecting room is closed to her."

"Come, now, Dick!" Devant threw his head back and laughed; "it's carrying the thing too far when you liken the Pimpernel to a disagreeably defunct subject."

"It all goes to the making of one's art; that is what I mean. It belongs to the art and need not be dragged into public to satisfy a woman's morbid curiosity."

"Or a man's?" The laugh was gone from the face of the older man.

"Or a man's, since you insist." Thornly looked into the depths of the rich glow upon the grate and took small heed of his companion's changed expression.

"And your model gave us away?"

"I beg pardon?" Thornly drew himself together; "what did you say?"

"I said, your model, the Pimpernel, told you? It must have given the little thing a bad half hour to be found out."

"It killed her childhood," the young man returned; "it died hard, and it wasn't pleasant for me to witness, but, thank God, the woman in her saved her soul from utter annihilation. Somehow, I have always wanted you and Katharine to know this."

"Thank you. You have told Katharine?"

"No, I'm leaving to-morrow. I'm going to tell Katharine to-morrow night. I waited for her to speak first to me; I hoped she would to the last. All might have been different if she only had."

"Perhaps Katharine is generous enough to forgive you unheard?" ventured Devant.

"No woman has a right to forgive a man in such a case, if she suspects what Katharine did!" The keen eyes drew together darkly.

"How do you know what Katharine thought, Dick?" The older man was growing anxious.

"A woman thinks only one thing, when she strikes that kind of a blow, Mr. Devant. The effect of the blow upon the object was proof enough of its character. I happened to be in at the death, you know."

"Dick, you're a man of the world; this sort of sentiment is not worthy of your intelligence. Katharine is a loving girl and naturally a bit jealous of you and your dissecting room. You must realize she had cause for surprise that day? Why, the little devil looked like a siren and the bare feet in the net were breathtaking. I think, under all the circumstances, for Katharine to overlook it in silence proves her a large-hearted woman."

"Or an indifferent, determined one!"

"Dick!"

"I feel rather more deeply, Mr. Devant, than you have, perhaps, imagined. This means much to me. I have never had but one ideal of womanhood that I have cared to bring into my inner life. My mother set my standard high."

"Your mother was an unusual woman, my boy."

"The unusual is what I have always admired."

"You are too young to be so unelastic."

"I'm too young to forego my ideal, Mr. Devant."

Presently Saxton entered the room with a tray of glasses and a bottle. After he was gone, Mr. Devant took up the subject anxiously.

"I was your father's friend, Dick, your mother's too, for that matter. I do not want you to do a mad thing in the heat of resentment. Katharine Ogden is a rare woman, a woman who will be the one thing needful to make your success in life secure. Her fortune will place you above the necessity of struggling. You can paint as genius moves and give the public only your best. She is beautiful; she loves you, is proud of you, and knows the world, the world that may be yours, in every detail. She is your ideal, my boy, your ideal, lost for a moment in the fog."

Thornly listened, and suddenly Janet's simile recurred to him: "It comes to me just as Davy's Light comes of an early morning when the fog lifts!" The memory brought a tugging of the heartstrings.

"You have scattered the fog, Mr. Devant," he answered. "I own I was in rather a mist, but you bring things out most distinctly!"

"And you will not go to Katharine at once? You see I am presuming upon old friendship and a sincere liking for you."

"I only wish there were a night train!" Thornly gave vent to a long, relieved breath.

"You hold to your purpose, Dick? I feel that but for me this might not have occurred. I should have restrained the child that day."

"I shall tell Katharine all, Mr. Devant. I am sure she will ask me to release her from a tie that can be only galling for us both."

"You will be playing the fool, Dick,"—a note of anger rang in the deep voice,—"a fool, and something worse. Gentlemen do not play fast and loose with a woman like Katharine Ogden!"

"I am sorry you judge me so harshly." Thornly flushed. "I should hardly think myself worthy the name of man, if I followed any other course. To marry Katharine with this between us would be sheer folly. To refer to it must in itself bring about the result I expect. I have no desire to enter Katharine's world and she has no intention of adopting mine. She has always believed I would use my success as a step to mount to her. That her world is less than mine has never occurred to her."

"But if the girl loves you?"

"She does not love me. Had she loved me, she must have spoken since—that day."

Mr. Devant arose uneasily and walked about the room, then he came back and drew his chair close to Thornly's.

"Will you take a glass of my—wine?" he asked huskily.

Thornly was about to decline, but changed his mind.

"Thanks, I will," he said instead. And the two sipped the port together.

"Dick, this has shaken me a bit. I feel that I have an ignoble share in the whole affair. I'm getting to be an old man; I can claim certain privileges on that score, and if life means anything past forty, it means sharing its experiences with a friend. I'm going to speak of something that has never passed my lips for nearly twenty years."

"You are very kind, Mr. Devant." Thornly set his glass down and thrust his hands in his pockets. "I appreciate your friendliness, but please do not give yourself pain. If life means anything under forty, it means getting your knocks at first hand." He tried to smile pleasantly, but his face fell at once into gloomy, set lines.

"I'm afraid," Mr. Devant went on, keeping his eyes upon his companion's face and guiding himself thereby, "I'm afraid some Quixotic idea of defending this little pimpernel of ours moves you to take this step. Believe me, nothing you can do in that direction—unless indeed you have gone too far already—can avail, if you seek the girl's happiness."

A deep flush rose to Thornly's cheeks, but the proud uplift of the head renewed hope in the older man's heart.

"You say," he continued, toying with his glass, "that to drag Katharine from her world would be ruinous to her; to drag this child of the dunes from her world would be—to put it none too harshly—hell! I've looked the girl's antecedents up since that day on the Hills. I've had my bad moments, I can assure you. It's like trying to draw water out of an empty well to get anything against their own from these people down here; but I had hopes of the girl's mother. I pin my faith to ancestry, and I am willing to build on a very small foundation, providing the soil is good. But the mother in no wise accounts for the daughter. She was a simple, uneducated woman, with rather an unpleasant way of shunning her kind. James B. Smith, my gardener, permitted me to wring this from him. He doesn't fancy Captain Billy Morgan, thinks him rather a saphead. He hinted at a necessity for the marriage of this same Billy and the girl's mother. It's about the one sin the Quintonites know as a sin. They come as near going back upon each other for that transgression as they ever come to anything definite. The girl is the offspring of a stupid surf-man and a nondescript sort of woman. She is not the product of any known better stock; she is, well, a freak of nature! You cannot transplant that kind of flower, Dick. The roots are hid in shallow soil of a peculiar kind. If you planted her in, well, in even your artistic world, she would either die, shrivel up, and be finished, or she might spread her roots, and finish you! I've seen more than one such case."

Thornly shook himself, as if doubtful what he should reply to this man who, above all else, in his own fashion, was trying to prove himself a friend.

"Thank you again, Mr. Devant," he said at last haltingly; "I suppose all men as old as you are sincere when they try to help us younger chaps by knocking us senseless in an hour of danger. But it's better to let us see and know the danger; we'll recognize it the next time. All I can say is, that I have formed no plans for after to-morrow night! I've got to get out into the open if I can. I rather imagine my art must satisfy me in the future."

Devant went over to a desk between two bookcases, opened it, and took something from a private drawer.

"What do you think of this?" he asked, handing Thornly an old photograph.

"I should say,"—the younger man looked keenly at the picture,—"I should say that it was an almost ideal face of a certain type."

"Of a certain type, yes." Devant came closer and leaned over his companion's shoulder. "The coloring, of course, is lacking. I never saw such glorious hair and eyes. The eyes gave promise of a nobility the woman-nature utterly lacked. That girl, Dick, has wrecked my life!"

Thornly handed the photograph to Devant. He felt as if he were in some way reading a private letter.

"Your life does not seem a wrecked life," he said confusedly. In a vague way he wished to repress a confidence that he felt, once told, might wield an influence over his own acts, and this his independence resented. "You have always appeared a thoroughly contented, successful man."

Devant laughed bitterly; then he idly placed the photograph in a book and closed the covers upon the exquisite face. Thornly hoped that would end the matter, but his companion was bent upon his course. He stretched his feet toward the fire and looked into the heart of the glow, with sad, brooding eyes.

"Happy!" he ejaculated, "happy! It is only youth that estimates happiness by superficialities. A smile, a laugh, a full pocketbook! You think they mean happiness?"

"They are often the outward expression."

"Or counterfeits. Have you ever read 'Peer Gynt,' Dick?"

"Yes. Ibsen has a gloomy charm for me. I read all he writes in about the same way a child reads goblin tales. I enjoy the shivers."

"You remember the woman who gave Peer permission to marry the one pure love of his life but stipulated that she should forever sit beside them?"

"Yes!" Thornly smiled grimly. "That was a devilishly Ibsen-like idea."

"It was a truer touch than the young can understand. Those ghostly women of an early folly often sit beside a man and the later, purer love of his life. Some men are able to ignore the gray spectres and get a deal of comfort from the saner reality of maturer years; I never could. That girl"—he touched the closed book as if it were the grave that concealed her—"has always come between me and later desires for a home and closer ties. Her wonderful eyes, that looked so much and meant so little, have held me by a power that death and years have never conquered."

"She died then?" Thornly could no longer shield himself from the undesired knowledge; he must hear the end.

"Yes. She came from near here, poor little soul! I can never get rid of the impression that her death was hurried, not only by trouble, but sheer homesickness. You cannot fit these slow, quiet natures into the city's whirlpool. I was a young fellow, down for the summer. I was ensnared by her beauty, and hadn't sense enough to see the danger. She followed me to the city,—took a place in a shop, and was about as wretched as a sea gull in a desert. I was fool enough to think it a noble act to befriend her and so I complicated matters. My father must have found out, though I was never sure of that. Father was a man who kept a calm exterior under any emotion; but he sent me abroad, and I, not knowing that he had discovered anything, dared not confess. I meant to come back at a year's end and set all straight in some way. Good God! set things straight! How we poor devils go through the world knocking down things like so many ten pins and solacing ourselves with the fancy that when we finish the game we'll set the pins in place again! We never get that chance, Dick, take my word for it! Whatever the plan of life is, it isn't for us to set up the game! We may play fair, if it is in us, but once we get through, we need not hope for any going back process. When I returned at the end of two years, I could not find her! It wasn't love that set me upon the search for her, Dick, I always knew that; but I think it was the one decent element that has ever kept me from going to the deepest depths. I got discouraged, finally, and took our old family lawyer into my confidence."

"Did you look down here?" Thornly asked slowly. The tale had clutched him in a nightmarish way that shook his nerves.

"They don't come back here, my boy, once they tread the path of that poor child. They simplify morality in Quinton along with all else, and the one unpardonable sin suffices for them. They grade their society by their attitude toward that. But old Thorndyke took this place into consideration as a beginning, for he aided me in my search when he was convinced of my determination."

"And you never found her?" Thornly was leaning forward with hands close clasped before him, his face showing tense in the red glow of the fire.

"Thorndyke did."

"Ah!"

"Yes, the poor little thing had been rescued after a fashion. Soon after I left her, a fellow who had always had a liking for her, a chap who had worked in the shop with her, was willing to marry her and she consented. You wouldn't think she could, quite, with those eyes, but she did! The man was good to her; but the city, and other things, were too much, and she lived only a short time. There was a child! I wanted to do something for it; I had a passion of remorse then, but Thorndyke told me that the child's best interest lay in my letting her alone. She was respected and comfortable. For me to interfere would be to throw dishonor upon the dead mother and a cloud upon the child. All had been buried and forgotten in the mother's grave. About all I could do to better the business was to keep my hands off; and that I did!"

Devant's head drooped upon his chest, and Thornly felt a kind of pity that stirred a new liking for the man.

"You think the lawyer told you the true facts?" he asked; "true in every particular?"

Devant started up and turned deep eyes upon the questioner.

"Great heavens! yes. You do not know Thorndyke. He was about as cast iron an old Puritan as ever survived the times. He was devoted to our family, and served us to his life's end as counsellor and friend; but not for the hope of heaven would he have lied! No, that's why I confided in Thorndyke, I could not have trusted any one else. I knew he would never respect me afterward; he never did. But he served me as no one else could, and I bore his contempt with positive gratitude."

"But you could never forget?" Thornly spoke almost affectionately. The older man looked up.

"No. And as I grow older I thank God I never could. We ought not forget such things as that. We ought to expiate them as long as we live. I have grown to take a kind of joy in the hurt of the memory, a kind of savage exaltation in the suffering. So, perhaps, can I wipe out the wrong in this life and get strength of a better sort for the next trial on beyond, if there is another trial! I suppose every man wants to show, and live the best that is in him; not many get the chance here, from what I see. I reckon that is why we old fellows have an interest in you younger ones. It goes against the grain, if we have a sneaking regard for you, to see you quench the divine spark with the same galling water we've gone through. Going, Dick?"

For the other had risen and was holding out his hand in a confused but eager fashion.

"Yes, Mr. Devant, and thank you! You're not an old man, I sincerely wish that you might some day, well, you understand—not forget exactly, but get another trial here!"

"Too late for that, Dick. Can't you stay over night?"

"No. I'm going to the Hills. I've some last things to do there."

"And to-morrow, Dick?"

"I'm going to Katharine!" The two men looked keenly into each other's eyes.

"I'll meet you then at the train, my boy, at 7.50. I've business in the city. I always put up at the Holcomb; look me up after you've seen Katharine."

"Good night, Mr. Devant, and again thank you!"

Devant walked with Thornly to the outer door, and then to the windswept piazza. "It's sharp to-night," he said; "I'll soon have to give up Bluff Head. Davy's Light has got it all its own way to-night, not a star or moon to rival its beauty. A time back I fancied one evening that the Light failed me. It was only for a few moments I imagined it, but it gave me quite a jog. I suppose it was the state of my nerves; one can rely upon Davy. He's a great philosopher in his way. His lamp is his duty; his lamp and that poor crippled wife of his who has just died. Davy is one of the few men I've met, Dick, who seems to have played the game fair and has never tried to comfort himself with the hope of going back. 'I'm ready for the next duty,' he said to me the other day with his old rugged face shining; 'there's always another duty ready at hand, when you drop one as finished.'"

The master of Bluff Head watched the straight young figure fade into the night. Then he turned again to Davy's Light.

"The weight of a dead duty," he muttered. "That's what anchors a man! It isn't in the order of things to trust a man with a new duty, when he failed with the last. There isn't any light to guide a man that's anchored by a dead duty."

Then Devant went back into his lonely house and sat down before the dulling fire to think it out about Thornly.

"He'll never go to any one but me, after he's seen Katharine," he thought. "He may not come to me. It all depends upon how deep the thing has gone, but, in case he needs any one, I'd better be on hand. I may serve as a buffer, and that's better than not serving at all."

CHAPTER X

Janet had conquered the art of crocheting in order that she might construct a Tam o' Shanter cap. It had been a difficult task, and the result was far from satisfying. Dropped stitches and uneven rows were in evidence all over the creation of dark red, with its bushy little knot on top. But Janet had an eye for the impressionistic touch, and as she glanced in the mirror of Susan Jane's bureau, the general effect was gratifying. Under the dull red the splendid, dusky gold of the girl's hair shone exquisitely. Janet had trained the rebellious locks at last to an upward tendency and the mass was knotted loosely beneath the artistic headgear. The eye for color had never been lacking in this girl of the dunes. Nature had taught her true, but Thornly had, later, assisted Nature; and no French modiste could more accurately have chosen the shade of reddish brown to suit the complexion than had Janet selected, from the village store, her coarse flannel for blouse and skirt. The skirt was long now, and the heavy shoes were worn religiously through heat and cold. There was to be no more absolute freedom for Janet of the Dunes.

David had come down from his Light, heavy eyed and weary. Mark Tapkins's absence caused extra duty for David, but the man would ask for no other helper; it would seem like disloyalty to Mark. Janet took a turn now and again to relieve David, and that helped considerably. The girl had borne her share the previous night, but her face showed no trace of the vigil.

"Sprucin'?" Davy paused. Tired as he was, the girl's beauty caught and held him.

"Some. I've set your breakfast out on the table, Davy, and the coffee is on the stove."

"Yer gettin' t' be a master hand at cookin', Janet. I don't b'lieve Pa Tapkins can beat yer coffee. Expectin' Mark back?" There was a double interest in this question.

"I haven't heard a word, Davy."

"Goin' visitin'?"

"No, Davy; nobody seems to want me to come visiting. The summer's doings have sort of rent Quinton asunder, and in some way I've managed to fall in the crack. I don't know what I've done," she smiled a crooked little smile, and gave the artistic Tam a new angle, "but I'm rather frozen out. Mrs. Jo G.'s Amelia made a 'face' at me yesterday. I shouldn't have noticed it, for the creature's hideous anyway, but she called an explanation after me; 'I've made a snoot at you!' she screamed, and would have said more, but Maud Grace pulled her in. No, Davy, I'm going up to Bluff Head."

"It's empty," Davy said, moving between stove and table clumsily.

"Eliza Jane's there, and James B. I wonder if they are going to shut the house for the winter?" asked Janet.

"Like as not," Davy nodded, and spoke from the depths of his coffee cup.

Janet bethought her of the cellar window and the old unbroken calm, and she sighed yearningly.

"Good bye, Davy." She came behind his chair, and snuggled her soft cap against his cheek. "I'm going up to have a good reading spell; then after dinner let us, you and I, if Mark should happen back, go over to the Station to see Cap'n Billy. Something's the matter with my Cap'n Daddy. He's keeping off land like an ocean steamer. Davy, he's got a cargo aboard, take my word for it, that he doesn't want us to know about. Like as not he's taken to pirate ways and we've got to get aboard, Davy, sure and certain."

"By gum!" ejaculated David, "what an eye ye've got fur signals, Janet! I've been doubtin' Billy's actions fur some time an', if Mark comes back, I'll jine ye goin' over t' the dunes. What's Mark's call t' the city?" he asked suddenly.

"You'll have to ask Mark." The girl was halfway down the garden path as she answered. "Probably following the city trade."

"Not much!" muttered Davy, going into the sleeping room; "Mark's got his stomick full of city once fur all. He hates it worse'n pisen."

Down the sunlit path went the girl to the oak thicket which lay between the Light and the road that stretched from the village to Bluff Head. Not a soul was in sight, and the crisp air and glorious view gave a new kind of joy to Janet that was distinct from pleasure. She felt that even if trouble crushed her, she would always be able to know this satisfaction of the senses. She paused at the entrance of the woods and looked back. The path was strewn with a carpet of leaves; here and there a tall poplar stood majestically above its stunted comrades of pines and scrub oaks, but looked gaunt and bare, while the humbler brothers bore a beauty of blood-red leaves, or the constant green. Janet smiled, recalling an old belief of her childhood. She had asked Pa Tapkins once why the oaks were so very little. Pa Tapkins had his explanation ready. It had borne part in his boyhood and was a fully confirmed fact in later life.

"It all come of the poplars bein' sich liars, Janet. Never trust no poplar! When things was only sand an' beginnin's in these parts, all the trees sprung up together. But the poplars, bein' snoopier than common, shot up considerable an' took a look around. Lordy! what did they see but the ocean a-roarin' an' makin' as if it was comin' straight over the dunes! An' the poplars passed the word down t' the little oaks, what was jest gettin' their bearin's. It scared 'em so it gave 'em a setback from the fust. But them tall liars wasn't content with statin' truths, day after day, when the sea lay smilin' like a babby; they handed down a bigger whopper than what they did when they fust saw the water. 'Nearer! nearer! it's comin',' that's what they said, mingled 'long with powerful yarns as to how the monster looked! Naterally the scared oaks didn't take no interest in shootin' up, when they thought they was so soon t' be eaten, so they got the habit of crouchin' low an' dependin' on the poplars fur information. They got a notion, too, of turnin' away from the sea. Sort o' sot their faces agin it, so t' speak. The pines, every onct so often, shamed 'em till they blushed deep red,—that comes 'long 'bout spring an' fall,—but no 'mount o' shamin' ever started them int' springin' up an' seein' fur themselves an' givin' the poplars the lie! Don't ye place no dependence on a poplar, Janet, they be shivery, whisperin' critters! They turn pale when there ain't nothin' the matter; they keep their shade t' themselves, jest plain miserly; an' they pry too much. 'T ain't proper; 't is 'most human-like."

Janet recalled the old fancy now, leaning against the tall poplar which, indeed, was whispering in nervous fashion to the blushing scrub oaks clustering close. Some one was coming up the road from the station. In the far distance the girl heard the panting shriek of the engine of the morning train from the city. Could that shambling, weary figure approaching be Mark? Why, he looked older than Pa Tapkins! Janet waited until he was abreast of her. His hands were plunged in his pockets, his shabby valise slung over his shoulder, and his head was bowed upon his chest.

"Mark!" she cried cheerily, "you look just worn out."

The man raised his dull face and an awakening of interest and hope lit it.

"Mornin', Janet," he replied and came to the tree. "Davy managed pretty good? I was kept longer than any reason. I hope Davy ain't petered out."

"No. I helped some. Did you get Maud Grace's young man, Mark?" The amusement in the laughing voice made Mark shiver. All the pleasure dropped from his face like a mask.

"I found where he was, all right, but I got there a day too late, he was off fur—fur—"

"For where?"