ne day, late in September, after the sun had banished the mists from
the air and the dampness from the ground by a clear day's process, they
wandered down between the gateposts to the beach where they had first
landed with Pootoo. The sun was sinking toward the water-line and they
sat wistfully watching it pass into the sea. For nearly five months they
had lived with the savages, for the greater portion not unhappily, but
always with the expectation that some day a vessel would come to take
them back to civilization.

"It has not been so unpleasant, after all, has it?" she asked. "We have
been far more comfortable than we could have prayed for."

"I should enjoy seeing a white man once in a while, though, and I'd give
my head for this morning's Chicago newspaper," he answered
rather glumly.

"I have been happier on this island than I ever was in my life. Isn't it
strange? Isn't it queer that we have not gone mad with despair? But I,
for one, have not suffered a single pang, except over the death of our
loved ones."

"Lord Huntingford included," maliciously.

"That is unkind, Hugh. I am ashamed to say it, but I want to forget that
he ever lived."

"You will have plenty of time to forget all you ever knew before we die.
We'll spend the rest of our days in that nigger village back there. If
I should die first I suppose you'd forget me in a week or so. It--"

"Why, Hugh! You know better than that! Why do you say such disagreeable
things?"

"I'm not worth remembering very long," he said lamely. She smiled and
said the statement threw a different light on the question. Whereupon he
did not know whether to laugh or scowl.

"This dear old island," she cried, looking toward the great rocks
lovingly. "Really, I should be sorry to leave it."

"When the ship comes, I'll go back to America, and you may remain here
if you like and be the only Izor in the business." He said it in jest,
but she looked at him solemnly for a moment and then turned her eyes out
to sea. She was reclining on her side, her hand supporting her head, her
elbow in the sand. He sat five feet away, digging holes in the sand with
an odd little walking stick. One of her sandalled feet protruded from
beneath the hem of her garment, showing ever so little of the bare,
white, fascinating ankle.

"I should despise the place if I had to live here a day without you,"
she said simply.

"What do you mean?" She did not answer at once. When she did, it was
ea