continued, turning slowly in his own direction,
"them artists is smudgin' up the landscape jest scandalous. One of them
wanted t' paint me, the other day, an' I held off an' let her. Lord! ye
should jest have seen wot she done t' my likeness! I nearly bu'st when
she showed me. I ain't handsome, none never accused me of that crime,
but I ain't lopsided an' lantern-jawed t' the extent she went. She said
I had a loose artistic pose; them was her words, but I ain't so loose
that I hang crooked."

Janet slept in the cottage on the dunes that night; and when the men
rose to go through the sunrise drill, she ran down the beach, across the
sand hills, and set her sail toward the mainland. She had had her
breakfast in the Station with the men and, recalling her difficulty in
escaping Susan Jane the day before, she headed the _Comrade_ away from
the Light and glided toward the Hills.

Mark Tapkins, turning down the wick as the sun came up, saw the white
sail set away from home; and something heavier than sleep struck chilly
upon his heart. He knew from past spying where Janet was going!

CHAPTER VI

Janet, used as she was to the keen, sweet air of the Hills, stood, after
securing her boat, and drew in deep breaths of the fragrant morning. She
had taken off her shoes and stockings, for the dew lay heavy upon the
ground; and these, wrapped in a fish net, were flung across her
shoulder. There was a good half mile to tread before the little hut
could be reached bodily, but the whistle's call, going on before, would
open the gates of Paradise if Thornly were there! The girl did not put
her doubt to the test just yet. There was bliss in dallying with the
joy, the bliss of youth, innocence, and unalloyed faith.

Thornly might have stayed, as he generally did, at his own boarding
house or at Bluff Head. Janet had learned of his intimacy there,
although she had never imagined Mr. Devant's ingenuity in trying to keep
them, at first, apart. If Thornly were away from the shanty, Janet knew
the hiding place for the key; she could enter at will and the secrets
of the treasure house were not hidden from her.

"Lock the door after you, whether you are in or out," was Thornly's
command. "No one must know, until the very last!" And the girl would
have cheerfully defended the place with her life. Over sandy hillocks
she went gleefully. The artist in her was throbbing wildly, she had a
new inspiration for Thornly's brush! She led his f