A sigh passed her lips, such a sigh as tells a woman's story better
than all the books; and in that moment the new look came upon her face,
the look I had seen when the yellow man changed words with her in the
morning.

"It's thirteen months three weeks since you went up with Mr. Czerny to
the cathedral at Nice," was my next word; "the days go slow on this
out-of-the-way shore, I'll be bound--until our friends come, Miss Ruth,
until we're sure they haven't forgotten us."

I had a meaning in this, and be sure she took it. Not that she answered
me out and away as I wished; for she put on the pretty air of wife and
mistress who wouldn't tell any of her husband's secrets.

"Why, yes," she said, very slowly, "the days are long and the nights
longer, and, of course, my husband is much away from here."

I nodded my head and drew the chair she'd offered me close to the
table. On her part she was looking at the clock as though she wished
that the hands of it might stand still. I read it that we hadn't much
time to lose, and what we had was no time for fair words.

"Miss Ruth," says I, without more parley, "from what I've seen to-night
I don't doubt that any honest man would be glad to get as far as he
could from Ken's Island and its people at the first opportunity. You'll
pardon what a plain seaman is going to say, and count him none the less
a friend for saying it. When you left money in the banker's hands to
commission a ship and bring her to this port, your words to me were, 'I
may have need of you.' Miss Ruth, you have need of me--I should be no
more than a fool if I couldn't see that. You have sore need of me, and
if you won't say so for yourself, I take leave to say it for you."

She raised a hand as though she would not hear me--but I was on a clear
course now, and I held to it in spite of her.

"Yes," I said, "you've need of your friends to-night, and it's a lucky
wind that brought them to this shore. What has passed, Miss Ruth, in
these months you speak of, it's not for me to ask or inquire. I have
eyes in my head, and they show me what I would give my fortune not to
see. You're unhappy here, Miss Ruth--you're not treated well."

I waited for her to speak; but not a word would she say. White she was,
as a flower from her own garden, and once or twice she shivered as
though the cold had struck her. I was just going on to speak again,
when what should happen but that her little head went down on the table
and