you tell where we are?" she inquired anxiously.

"Not definitely. I know, of course, we must be somewhere off the south
coast of New England: somewhere between Cape Cod and Block Island. But
I've never sailed up this way--never east of Orient Point; my boating
has been altogether confined to Long Island Sound.... And my
geographical memory is as hazy as the day. There _are_ islands off the
south coast of Massachusetts--a number of them: Nantucket, you know, and
Martha's Vineyard. This might be either--only it isn't, because they're
summer resorts. That"--he swept his hand toward the land in the
northeast--"might be either, and probably is one of 'em. At the same
time, it may be the mainland. I don't know."

"Then ... then what are we to do?"

"I should say, possess our souls in patience, since we have no boat. At
least, until we can signal some passing vessel. There aren't any in
sight just now, but there must be some--many--in decent weather."

"How--signal?"

He looked round, shaking a dubious head. "Of course there's nothing like
a flagpole here--but me, and I'm not quite long enough. Perhaps I can
find something to serve as well. We might nail a plank to the corner of
the roof and a table-cloth to that, I suppose."

"And build fires, by night?"

He nodded. "Best suggestion yet. I'll do that very thing to-night--after
I've had a bite to eat."

She started impatiently away. "Oh, come, come! What am I thinking of, to
let you stand there, starving by inches?"

They entered the house by the back door, finding themselves in the
kitchen--that mean and commonplace assembly-room of narrow and pinched
lives. The immaculate cleanliness of decent, close poverty lay over it
all like a blight. And despite the warmth of the air outside, within it
was chill--bleak with an aura of discontent bred of the incessant
struggle against crushing odds which went on within those walls from
year's end to year's end....

Whitaker busied himself immediately with the stove. There was a full
wood-box near by; and within a very few minutes he had a brisk fire
going. The woman had disappeared in the direction of the barn. She
returned in good time with half a dozen eggs. Foraging in the pantry and
cupboards, she brought to light a quantity of supplies: a side of bacon,
flour, potatoes, sugar, tea, small stores of edibles in tins.

"I'm hungry again, myself," she declared, attacking the problem of
simple cookery with a will and a confi