Grimly Whitaker sat himself down in the kitchen and prepared to wait the
reappearance of his wife--prepared to wait as long as life was in him,
so that he were there to welcome her when, her paroxysm over, she would
come to him to be comforted, soothed and reasoned out of her distorted
conception of her destiny.

Not that he had the heart to blame or to pity her for that terrified
vision of life. Her history was her excuse. Nor was his altogether a
blameless figure in that history. At least it was not so in his sight.
Though unwittingly, he had blundered cruelly in all his relations with
the life of that sad little child of the Commercial House.

Like sunlight penetrating storm wrack, all the dark disarray of his
revery was shot through and through by the golden splendour of the
knowledge that she loved him....

As for this black, deadly shadow that had darkened her life--already he
could see her emerging from it, radiant and wonderful. But it was not to
be disregarded or as yet ignored, its baleful record considered closed
and relegated to the pages of the past. Its movement had been too
rhythmic altogether to lack a reason. His very present task was to read
its riddle and exorcise it altogether.

For hours he pondered it there in the sunlit kitchen of the silent
house--waiting, wondering, deep in thought. Time stole away without his
knowledge. Not until late in the afternoon did the shifted position of
the sun catch his attention and arouse him in alarm. Not a sound from
above...!

He rose, ascended the stairs, tapped gently on the locked door.

"Mary," he called, with his heart in his mouth--"Mary!"

Her answer was instant, in accents sweet, calm and clear:

"I am all right. I'm resting, dear, and thinking. Don't fret about me.
When I feel able, I will come down to you."

"As you will," he assented, unspeakably relieved; and returned to the
kitchen.

The diversion of thought reminded him of their helpless and forlorn
condition. He went out and swept the horizon with an eager and hopeful
gaze that soon drooped in disappointment. The day had worn on in
unbroken calm: not a sail stirred within the immense radius of the
waters. Ships he saw in plenty--a number of them moving under power east
and west beyond the headland with its crowning lighthouse; others--a
few--left shining wakes upon the burnished expanse beyond the farthest
land visible in the north. Unquestionably main-travelled roads of the
sea, t