lves flushed with purple. The
wharves were gay, and dark clustering foliage hid an enchanted city as
the Folly glided between dancing buoys. Honora, with a frightened glance
upward at the great sail, caught her breath. And she felt rather than
saw the man beside her guiding her seaward.

A discreet expanse of striped yellow deck separated them from the wicker
chairs where Mrs. Shorter and Mr. Dewing were already established. She
glanced at the profile of the Viking, and allowed her mind to dwell for
an instant upon the sensations of that other woman who had been snatched
up and carried across the ocean. Which was the quality in him that
attracted her? his lawlessness, or his intellect and ambition? Never,
she knew, had he appealed to her more than at this moment, when he
stood, a stern figure at the wheel, and vouchsafed her nothing but
commonplaces. This, surely, was his element.

Presently, however, the yacht slid out from the infolding land into an
open sea that stretched before them to a silver-lined horizon. And he
turned to her with a disconcerting directness, as though taking for
granted a subtle understanding between them.

"How well you sail," she said, hurriedly.

"I ought to be able to do that, at least," he declared.

"I saw you when you came in the other day, although I didn't know who it
was until afterwards. I was standing on the rocks near the Fort, and my
heart was in my mouth."

He answered that the Dolly was a good sea boat.

"So you decided to forgive me," he said.

"For what?"

"For staying in Newport."

Before accepting the invitation she had formulated a policy, cheerfully
confident in her ability to carry it out. For his decision not to
leave Newport had had an opposite effect upon her than that she had
anticipated; it had oddly relieved the pressure. It had given her a
chance to rally her forces; to smile, indeed, at an onslaught that had
so disturbed her; to examine the matter in a more rational light. It had
been a cause for self-congratulation that she had scarcely thought of
him the night before. And to-day, in her blue veil and blue serge gown,
she had boarded the 'Folly' with her wits about her. She forgot that it
was he who, so to speak, had the choice of ground and weapons.

"I have forgiven you. Why shouldn't I, when you have so royally atoned."

But he obstinately refused to fence. There was nothing apologetic in
this man, no indirectness in his method of attack. Parry ad