sures of the flying hours, she began to regain
strength and color, her languor disappeared, she spent the day in the
soft blissful air with her books or work, her mother knitting and
nodding near by; while John, if not sick himself, yet feeling very
miserable, lay on a mattress on the deck, sometimes dozing, sometimes
following with his eye the graceful lines and snowy dazzle of the
perfect little yacht as mast and sheet and shroud made their relief
upon the sky; sometimes listening to Lilian and Reyburn; sometimes
watching them as they walked up and down in the twilight, her dress
fluttering round her and her fair hair blowing in the wind. John
wondered at her as he watched her: she seemed to be possessed with an
unnatural life; a flickering, dancing sort of fire burned in her eye,
on her cheek and lip, in her restless manner: she was like one who
after long slumber felt herself alive and receiving happiness at every
pore, but a strange, treacherous sort of happiness that might slip
away and leave her at any moment, and which she was ever on the alert
to keep.

One night Lilian's mother had gone below, John had followed, and they
were long since folded in their quiet dreams; and Lilian, unable to
sleep, had at last arisen and thrown on some garments, and wrapping a
great cloak about her, had stolen on deck. The person still pacing the
deck, who saw her ascend and flit along with her fair hair streaming
over her white cloak and her face shining white in the starlight,
might have taken her for a spirit. But he was not the kind of man that
believes in spirits. He went and leaned with her as she leaned over
the vessel's edge, and watched the glittering rent they made in the
water. They were side by side: now and then the wind blew the silken
ends of her hair across his cheek, and his hand lay over hers as it
rested on the rail; now and then they looked at one another; now and
then they spoke.

"Are you happy, Lilian?" he said.

"Oh, perfectly!" she answered him.

As she said it there was an outcry, a sudden lurch of the vessel, a
flapping of the sails and ropes, and a vast shadow swept by them, the
hull of a huge steamer, so near that they could almost have touched it
with an outstretched hand. But as it ploughed its way on and left them
unharmed and rocking on its great waves, Reyburn released her from the
arm he had flung about her in the moment's dismay--the arm that had
never folded her before, that never did agai