I looked at her steadily, waiting for her to finish.

"And safer," she added almost in a whisper; "especially--at night, I
mean."

"Safer, Joan?" I repeated, thinking I had never seen her eyes so soft
and tender. She nodded her head, keeping her gaze fixed on my face.

It was really difficult to refuse, whatever my thoughts and judgment may
have been, and somehow I understood that she spoke with good reason,
though for the life of me I could not have put it into words.

"Happier--and safer," she said gravely, the canoe giving a dangerous
lurch as she leaned forward in her seat to catch my answer. Perhaps,
after all, the wisest way was to grant her request and make light of it,
easing her anxiety without too much encouraging its cause.

"All right, Joan, you queer creature; I promise," and the instant look
of relief in her face, and the smile that came back like sunlight to her
eyes, made me feel that, unknown to myself and the world, I was capable
of considerable sacrifice after all.

"But, you know, there's nothing to be afraid of," I added sharply; and
she looked up in my face with the smile women use when they know we are
talking idly, yet do not wish to tell us so.

"_You_ don't feel afraid, I know," she observed quietly.

"Of course not; why should I?"

"So, if you will just humour me this once I--I will never ask anything
foolish of you again as long as I live," she said gratefully.

"You have my promise," was all I could find to say.

She headed the nose of the canoe for the lagoon lying a quarter of a
mile ahead, and paddled swiftly; but a minute or two later she paused
again and stared hard at me with the dripping paddle across the thwarts.

"You've not heard anything at night yourself, have you?" she asked.

"I never hear anything at night," I replied shortly, "from the moment I
lie down till the moment I get up."

"That dismal howling, for instance," she went on, determined to get it
out, "far away at first and then getting closer, and stopping just
outside the Camp?"

"Certainly not."

"Because, sometimes I think I almost dreamed it."

"Most likely you did," was my unsympathetic response.

"And you don't think father has heard it either, then?"

"No. He would have told me if he had."

This seemed to relieve her mind a little. "I know mother hasn't," she
added, as if speaking to herself, "for she hears nothing--ever."

* * * * *

It was two nights after