is schooner,
the young shipmaster had held her in his arms at the back door
there, and had told her over and over again of his love for her.
Thought of that moment was an exquisite memory to the girl.

She saw the schooner drop anchor off Portygee Town, with all its
canvas rattling down in windrows of white. She even saw the little
gig launched. Tunis was coming ashore. He would soon be up the hill.
His long strides would soon bring him to her side again--open-eyed,
ruddy-faced, a veritable sea god among men!

She ran out a dozen times to gaze down the road and wonder what kept
him. Then she turned her back on the road and spent the next half
hour in beating the dust out of all the parlor and sitting room
sofa pillows and one or two of the covered chairs.

Peace, like the sunshine itself, lay over all of Wreckers' Head.
Here and there a spiral of smoke rose from a chimney, and fowl
wandered about the well-reaped fields. But not much other life was
visible. The fall haze gave to distant objects a dimmer outline,
softening the sharp lineaments of the more rugged landscape. Color
and form took on new beauty.

It was all so lovely, so peaceful, that it was impossible that the
girl should have dreamed of what was approaching. Since she had come
her mind had not been so far from apprehension of disaster. Since
Sunday, when she had wandered with Tunis along the shore, it had
seemed to the young woman that no harm could assail her. She was
secure, sheltered, impregnably fortified both in Tunis' love and in
the situation she had gained with the Balls and in the community.

She knew, at last, that somebody was on the road, but she would not
look. She heard the latch of the gate and the creak of its hinges.
Somebody was behind her. How softly Tunis stepped! She thought that
he was approaching her quietly, believing he could surprise her. In
a moment she would feel his arms about her and would surprise him by
laying her head back against his breast and putting up her lips to
be kissed.

But, as he delayed, she turned her head ever so slyly. It was not
the heavily shod feet of Tunis Latham she saw. What she saw was a
pair of the very lightest of pearl-gray shoes, wonderful of arch and
heel. Above were slim ankles and calves incased in fiber-silk hose
the hue of the shoes.

She flashed a glance at the face of the stranger, and her gaze was
immediately held by a pair of fixed brown eyes. There were green
glints in the eyes--