e beach," she announced
drowsily. "I really think I was going to sleep when you made your
appearance."

Nasmyth could take a hint, and he strolled away down the veranda
stairway and around the edge of the wide clearing in the shadow of the
Bush, until he stood looking down upon the sea from the crown of the
bluff. Then he felt a little thrill, for some twenty or thirty feet
beneath him was a patch of something white in the shadow of the
shrubbery. He went down quietly until he stopped, and, stooping,
touched Violet Hamilton's shoulder. She looked around with a start,
and a faint trace of embarrassment crept into her face at the sight of
him.

"Oh," she said, "I thought you were in Victoria."

Nasmyth stretched himself out upon a ledge of rock near her feet.
"Mrs. Acton was good enough to imply that she had been expecting me
more or less anxiously for several days," he rejoined in a tone of
reproach. "In fact, she used the plural pronoun, which led me to
believe that somebody else must have shared her anxiety. She did not,
however, point out who it was that she meant."

"Her husband, in all probability. She could, at least, speak for
him."

Nasmyth appeared to ponder over this, though his heart was beating
faster than usual, for the suggestion of confusion which he had
noticed in the girl's manner had its significance for him.

"Well," he conceded, "it may have been Acton, but I almost ventured to
believe she meant somebody else. In any case, I shouldn't like to
think you were displeased at my reappearance. If you are, I can, of
course, go away again."

"I am not the only person at Bonavista. Wouldn't anybody else's wishes
count--Mr. Acton's, for instance?"

"No," asserted Nasmyth reflectively. "At least, not to anything like
the same extent."

Violet laughed. "The difficulty is that nobody can tell how much you
really mean. You are so seldom serious." She cast a quick glance at
him. "You were not like that when you first came here."

"Then," said Nasmyth, "you can blame it on Bonavista. As I have been
trying to explain to Mrs. Acton, who made a similar observation, there
is glamour in this air. It gets hold of one. I was, no doubt, a
tediously solemn person when I left the Bush, but you will remember
that soon after I arrived here, you and I sailed out together into the
realms of moonlight and mystery. I sometimes feel that I must have
brought a little of the latter back with me."

Violet said nothing fo