in detail. Dick began: "Come
along! You know you can advertise for her with a personal down there
and the old woman wouldn't object as long as you were careful and put
in an appearance now and then!"

As Dick limped away, Mr. Carter thought, in confidence, that the whole
matter--even to suit Mr. North's sensitive nature--might be settled
there. "SHE evidently expects you to return. My opinion is that she
never left San Francisco. You can't tell anything about these women."

With this last sentence on his indifferent ear, James North seemed to
be left free. Maria had rejoined her mother; but as they crossed the
ford, and an intervening sand-hill hid the others from sight, that
piquant young lady suddenly appeared on the hill and stood before him.

"And you're not coming back?" she said directly.

"No."

"Never?"

"I cannot say."

"Tell me! what is there about some women to make men love them so?"

"Love," replied North, quietly.

"No, it cannot be--it is not THAT!"

North looked over the hill and round the hill, and looked bored.

"Oh, I'm going now. But one moment, Jem! I didn't want to come. They
dragged me here. Good-by."

She raised a burning face and eyes to his. He leaned forward and
imprinted the perfunctory cousinly kiss of the period upon her cheek.

"Not that way," she said angrily, clutching his wrists with her long,
thin fingers; "you shan't kiss me in that way, James North."

With the faintest, ghost-like passing of a twinkle in the corners of
his sad eyes, he touched his lips to hers. With the contact, she
caught him round the neck, pressed her burning lips and face to his
forehead, his cheeks, the very curves of his chin and throat, and--with
a laugh was gone.

II

Had the kinsfolk of James North any hope that their visit might revive
some lingering desire he still combated to enter once more the world
they represented, that hope would have soon died. Whatever effect this
episode had upon the solitary,--and he had become so self-indulgent of
his sorrow, and so careless of all that came between him and it, as to
meet opposition with profound indifference,--the only appreciable
result was a greater attraction for the solitude that protected him,
and he grew even to love the bleak shore and barren sands that had
proved so inhospitable to others. There was a new meaning to the roar
of the surges, an honest, loyal sturdiness in the unchanging
persistency of the uncouth and blu