face. You had brought
ambitions to the Islands, but you had forgotten them. You kept your
kindness, your good nature, but you had forgotten all purpose in life.
In all, except a few personal habits, you were neglecting yourself; and
this neglect came of your being content to live purposeless in this
forgotten hole, and draw your pay without asking questions. Forgive me,
but I seemed to see all this, and it drove me half wild."

He bowed his head. "I know it did," he answered very slowly, "and that
is how you came to save me."

"Is--is this another story?" she asked, after eyeing him a moment or
two in bewilderment.

"If you will listen to it." He drew his writing chair over to the
fireside, and then, facing her across the hearth he told her the second
story as simply as he had told the first, but more nervously, leaning
forward with his elbows on his knees, now and again spreading out his
hands to the fire on which he kept his eyes bent during most of the
recital. Vashti, too, leaned forward, intent on his face. One hand
gripped the arm of her chair--so tightly that its pressure drove the
blood from the finger tips, while the wonder in her eyes changed to
something like awe. "And so," the commandant concluded, "the letter has
gone. I posted it to-day."

"What will happen?"

"I really cannot tell." Without lifting his gaze from the fire he shook
his head dubiously. "But at the worst, the girls are grown into women
now. They have been excellently well educated--their mother saw to that
and made a great point of it from the first--and by this time they
should be able to help, if not support her entirely."

"Man! Man! Will you drive me mad?"

Vashti sprang from the chair.

"I have been unjust. I have been worse than a fool!" She flung back her
cloak, and, clasping her hands behind her, man-fashion, fell to pacing
the room to and fro. The Commandant stood and stared. Something in her
voice puzzled him completely. In its tone, though she accused herself,
there vibrated a low note of triumph. She was genuinely
remorseful--why, he could not guess. Yet, when she halted before him,
he saw that her eyes were glad as well as dim. She held out a hand.

"Forgive me, my friend!"

"Do you know," stammered the Commandant, as he took it, "I should
esteem it a favour to be told whether I am standing on my head or my
heels!"

How long he held her hand he was never afterwards able to tell; for at
its electric touch the room b