to wander at will within the boundaries of the island.

Sunset found her on a little sandy hillock at the western end of Wreck
Island--sitting with her chin in her hands, and gazing seawards with
eyes in which rebellion smouldered. She would not give in, would not
abandon hope and accept the situation at its face value, as
irremediable. Upon this was she firmly determined: the night was not to
pass unmarked by some manner of attempt to escape or summon aid. She
even found herself willing to consider arson as a last resort: the hotel
afire would make a famous torch to bring assistance from the mainland.
Only ... she shrank from the attempt, her soul curdling with the
sinister menace of vitriol.

The day was dying in soft airs that swept the face of the waters with a
touch so light as to be barely perceptible. With sundown fell stark
calm; the Sound became a perfect mirror for the sombre conflagration in
the west. The slightest sounds reverberated afar through the still,
moveless void. She could hear Mrs. Clover stridently counselling her
Ephraim at the house, the quarter of a mile away. Later, she heard the
hollow tramp of two pair of feet, one heavy and one light, on the
plank-walk; the creak of rowlocks with the dip and splash of oars; and,
after a little pause, the sudden, sharp, explosive rattle of a motor
exhaust, as rapid, loud and staccato as the barking of a Gatling, yet
quickly hushed----almost as soon as it shattered the silences, muffled
to a thick and steady drumming.

Eleanor rose and turned to look northward. The wood-lot hid from her
sight both dock and mooring--and all but the gables of the hotel, as
well--but she soon espied the motor-boat standing away on a straight
course for the mainland: driven at a speed that seemed to her nearly
incredible, a smother of foam at its stern, long purple ripples widening
away from the jet of white water at the stem, a smooth, high swell of
dark water pursuing as if it meant to catch up and overwhelm the boat
and its occupants. These latter occupied the extremes of the little
vessel: Ephraim astern, beside the motor; the slighter figure at the
wheel in the bows.

Slowly the girl took her path back to the hotel, watching the boat draw
away, straight and swift of flight as an arrow, momentarily dwindling
and losing definite form against the deepening blue-black surface of the
Sound....

Weary and despondent, she ascended the pair of steps to the kitchen
porch. Mrs.