murmured.

"I don't know what you consider a fair warning; but I had guessed so
much."

"The first for fifteen years," she pursued; "and I won't promise that I
shall not behave worse--considerably worse. Are you very angry with
me?"

"My dear," answered the Commandant ("My dear," it should be explained,
is the commonest form of address in the Islands, and one that even a
prisoner will use to the magistrate trying him), "if you really wish to
know, I am enjoying myself recklessly; and it would be idle to call my
garrison to put you under restraint, since you have already suborned
them. I started, you see, with the imprudence of showing you my
defences, and now you have us all at your mercy."

"You have been more than good to me," said Vashti, after a pause; "but
the fortress is already vacated." She nodded towards a valise which
rested under the thwart by the foot of the mast. "Mrs. Treacher packed
it for me," she explained, "and her husband carried it down to the
boat. If Ruth needs me--as she almost certainly does--and if her
husband will tolerate me, I shall sleep on Saaron to-night."

"But you will come back?" he asked, dismayed.

"Certainly not, unless the Lord Proprietor drives me to seek refuge."

The Commandant did not answer. He had known that this happy time must
be short; he had known it from the first, and that the end would come
unexpectedly.

The wind had fallen slightly, and the boat crept up to the entrance of
Cromwell's Sound with sail that alternately tautened its sheet and let
it fall slack. The single bell of Brefar Church yet rung to service;
but the sun had sunk beneath the horizon, and the sea-lights were
flashing around the horizon before Saaron loomed close on the port
hand; and as they crept towards the East Porth under the loom of the
Island, a row-boat shot out from the beach there, and headed up the
Sound towards Brefar.

"Hush!" commanded Vashti, and peered forward.

But a boat putting out from Saaron at this hour could only belong to
Saaron's only inhabitants, and could be bound but on one errand. And
Ruth was in her, for, presently, as the children's voices travelled
back across the still water, Vashti heard Matthew Henry's pitched to a
shrill interrogative and calling his mother by name.

"They are rowing to church, the whole family," said Vashti. "We can
follow as slowly as we choose."

She listened a moment, but the oars in the boat ahead continued their
regular plash.