his visit
were utterly shattered, and a sudden violent impulse urged him to return
to Naples.

"Capri is not large enough to hold myself and David Beverley," he
declared. "We'll go back by the night boat, Lorna. Meantime we'll borrow
Signor Verdi's skiff and paddle about among the rocks. I feel easier on
water than on land. I like the sense of a space of ocean round me. You
can't suddenly meet a man when you've plenty of sea-room, can you?"

"No, no, Dad!" said Lorna, trying to soothe him. "We can walk down the
steps to the cove and get the skiff, and be quite away from everybody
once we are on the sea."

She was ready to humor his every whim, for in the blackness of her
trouble nothing seemed at present to really matter. The whirling eddies
of her thoughts rushed through her brain in a perpetual series of
questions and answers. Must hate strike the death knell of love? Surely
the only thing to do with an injury is to forgive it. Would revenge wipe
out the wrong or in any way solve anything? No, there would only be one
more wrong done in the world, to go on in ever-widening circles of
hatred and misery. Curses, like chickens, come home to roost, and
"getting even" may bring its own punishment.

"Our only chance is to go away and start afresh in a new country," she
sobbed. "At the other side of the Pacific we might forget--but no!
Renie! Renie! If I go to the back of beyond I shan't forget you, and all
you've been to me. The memory of you, darling, will last until the end
of my life."

Mr. Carson found Signor Verdi working in his allotment, obtained leave
from him to use the skiff, and climbing down the flight of steep steps
cut in the rock, reached the cove where the boat was beached on the
shingle. He had been an expert oarsman from his college days, and
understood Neapolitan waters, so in a short time he and Lorna were
skimming gently over the surface of the blue sea, keeping well away from
rocks and out of currents, but within reasonable distance of the land.
Sometimes they rowed and sometimes they drifted, hardly caring in what
direction they steered so long as they circled round the island. Their
only object was to stop out on the sea, and, as they had brought a
picnic basket with them, there was nothing to urge their return until
sunset. In the course of the afternoon they had coasted below Monte
Solaro, and found themselves approaching the entrance that led to the
Blue Grotto. In the mornings, when the stea