es. You mean to live
here. I do not."

Hazel left off working, and looked greatly perplexed; the attack was so
sudden in its form, though it had been a long time threatening. He found
nothing to say, and she was impatient now to speak her mind, so she
replied to his look.

"You are making yourself at home here. You are contented. Contented? You
are _happy_ in this horrible prison."

"And why not?" said Hazel. But he looked rather guilty. "Here are no
traitors; no murderers. The animals are my friends, and the one human
being I see makes me better to look at her."

"Mr. Hazel, I am in a state of mind, that romantic nonsense jars on me.
Be honest with me, and talk to me like a man. I say that you beam all
over with happiness and content, and that you-- Now answer me one
question; why have you never lighted the bonfire on Telegraph Point?"

"Indeed I don't know," said he, submissively. "I have been so occupied."

"You have, and how? Not in trying to deliver us both from this dreadful
situation, but to reconcile me to it. Yes, sir, under pretense (that is a
harsh word, but I can't help it) of keeping out the rain. Your rain is a
_bugbear;_ it never rains, it never will rain. You are killing yourself
almost to make me comfortable in this place. Comfortable?" She began to
tremble all over with excitement long restrained. "And do you really
suppose you can make me live on like this, by building me a nice hut. Do
you think I am all body and no soul, that shelter and warmth and enough
to eat can keep my heart from breaking, and my cheeks from blushing night
and day? When I wake in the morning I find myself blushing to my fingers'
ends." Then she walked away from him. Then she walked back. "Oh, my dear
father, why did I ever leave you! Keep me here? make me live months and
years on this island? Have you sisters? Have you a mother? Ask yourself,
is it likely? No; if you will not help me, and they don't love me enough
to come and find me and take me home, I'll go to another home without
your help or any man's." Then she rose suddenly to her feet. "I'll tie my
clothes tight round me, and fling myself down from that point on to the
sharp rocks below. I'll find a way from this place to heaven, if there's
no way from it to those I love on earth."

Then she sank down and rocked herself and sobbed hard.

The strong passion of this hitherto gentle creature quite frightened her
unhappy friend, who knew more of books than women. He