and cold bottle, and some
supplies under the stern seat."

It was really quite cheerful sitting there, eating sardines and crackers
and olives and orange marmalade. A fresh breeze was blowing, and the
river was wrinkled all over its silver surface, and we could see nothing
but water ahead of us, straight to the horizon, where there was just the
faint streak of a steamer's smoke.

"We must be almost in the Bay," I said. "Couldn't you have steered
up-stream instead of down?"

He sat very still for a moment looking at me, and then he said quickly
and sharply, "I didn't want to go up-stream. I wanted to go down. And I
came in here because I saw a church spire, and where there is a church
there is always a preacher. Will you marry me, Mistress Anne?"

At first I thought that he had lost his mind. Uncle Rod, I don't think
that I shall ever see a sardine or a cracker without a vision of Geoffrey
with his breakfast in his hand and his face as white as chalk above it.

"That's a very silly joke," I said. "Why should I marry you?"

He looked at me, and--I didn't need any answer, for it came to me then
that I had been out all night on the river with him, and that he was
thinking of a way to quiet people's tongues!

I tried to speak, but my voice shook, and finally I managed to stammer
that when we got back I was sure it would be all right.

"It won't be all right," he said; "the world will have things to say
about you, and I'd rather die than have them say it. And I could make you
happy, Anne."

Then I told him that I did not love him, that he was my dear friend, my
brother--and suddenly his face grew red, and he came over and caught hold
of my hands. "I am not your brother," he said. "I want you whether you
want me or not. I could make you love me--I've got to have you in my
life. I am not going on alone to meet darkness--and despair."

Oh, Uncle Rod, then I knew and I looked straight at him and asked:
"Geoffrey Fox, did you break the motor?"

"It isn't broken," he said; "there has never been a thing the matter with
it."

I think for the first time that I was a little afraid. Not of him, but of
what he had done.

"Oh, how could you," I said, "how could you?"

And it was then that he said, "I thought that I could play Cave Man and
get away with it."

After that he told me how much he cared. He said that I had helped him
and inspired him. That I had shown him a side of himself that no one else
had ever shown. Th