been, by rights. But now she knows that I'm alive--is about to sue for a
divorce.... Now you know just what sort of a contemptible hound I am,
and why it was so hard to tell you."

After a long pause, during which neither stirred, she told him, in a
faint voice: "Thank you."

She moved toward the house.

"I throw myself upon your mercy--"

"Do you?" she said coolly, pausing.

"If you will forgive me--"

"Oh, I forgive you, Mr. Whitaker. My heart is really not quite so
fragile as all this implies."

"I didn't mean that--you know I didn't. I'm only trying to assure you
that I won't bother you--with this trouble of mine--again. I don't want
you to be afraid of me."

"I am not."

The words were terse and brusque enough; the accompanying swift gesture,
in which her hand rested momentarily on his arm as if in confidence
approaching affection, he found oddly contradictory.

"You don't see--anything?" she said with an abrupt change of manner,
swinging to the north.

He shaded his eyes, peering intently through the night, closely sweeping
its encompassing obscurity from northwest to southeast.

"Nothing," he said, dropping his hand. "If there were a boat heading
this way, we couldn't help seeing her lights."

"Then there's no use waiting?"

"I'm afraid not. They'd hardly come to-night, anyway; more likely by
daylight, if they should happen to grow suspicious of our beacon."

"Then I think I'll go to bed. I'm very, very tired, in spite of my sleep
on the sands. That didn't rest me, really."

"Of course."

"And you--?"

"Oh, I'm all right."

"But what are you going to do?"

"Why--keep the fire going, I presume."

"Is it necessary, do you think? Or even worth while?"

He made a doubtful gesture.

"I wish," she continued--"I wish you'd stay in the house. I--I'm really
a bit timid: unnerved, I presume. It's been, you know, rather a
harrowing experience. Anything might happen in a place like this...."

"Oh, certainly," he agreed, something constrained. "I'd feel more
content, myself, to know I was within call if anything should alarm
you."

They returned to the kitchen.

In silence, while Whitaker fidgeted about the room, awkward and unhappy,
the girl removed a glass lamp from the shelf above the sink, assured
herself that it was filled, and lighted it. Then, over her shoulder:

"I hope you don't mean to stay up all night."

"I--well, I'm really not sleepy."

"Oh, but you are," she contradicted