silent!" Mary Daney
cried hysterically, and rose to follow her.

"I think you had better go, Mrs. Daney. I am quite familiar with the
figure of The Laird since his retirement; he walks round the bight
with his dogs every afternoon for exercise, and, if I am not greatly
mistaken, that is he coming down the beach."

Mrs. Daney cast a terrified glance in the direction indicated. A few
hundred yards up the beach she recognized The Laird, striding briskly
along, swinging his stick, and with his two English setters romping
beside him. With a final despairing "Please Nan; please do not be
cruel!" she fled, Nan Brent smiling mischievously after her stout
retreating form.

"I have condemned you to the horrors of uncertainty," the girl
soliloquized. "How very, very stupid you are, Mrs. Daney, to warn me
to protect him! As if I wouldn't lay down my life to uphold his honor!
Nevertheless, you dear old bungling busybody, you are absolutely
right, although I suspect no altruistic reason carried you forth on
this uncomfortable errand."

Nan had heretofore, out of the bitterness of her life, formed the
opinion that brickbats were for the lowly, such as she, and bouquets
solely for the great, such as Donald McKaye. Now, for the first time,
she realized that human society is organized in three strata--high,
mediocre, and low, and that when a mediocrity has climbed to the seats
of the mighty, his fellows strive to drag him back, down to their own
ignoble level--or lower. To Nan, child of poverty, sorrow, and
solitude, the world had always appeared more or less incomprehensible,
but this afternoon, as she retraced her slow steps to the Sawdust
Pile, the old dull pain of existence had become more complicated and
acute with the knowledge that the first ray of sunlight that had
entered her life in three years was about to be withdrawn; and at the
thought, tears, which seemed to well from her heart rather than from
her eyes, coursed down her cheeks and a sob broke through her clenched
lips.

Her progress homeward, what with the heavy bundle of driftwood, in her
apron impeding her stride, coupled with the necessity for frequent
pauses to permit her child to catch up with her, was necessarily
slow--so slow, in fact, that presently she heard quick footsteps
behind her and, turning, beheld Hector McKaye. He smiled, lifted his
hat, and greeted her pleasantly.

"Good-afternoon, Miss Nan. That is a heavy burden of driftwood you
carry, my de