be as quick as I can."
Si picked Ethel up in his strong arms and carried her into the
fish-house. He placed her on one of the low benches and hurriedly
began to kindle a fire. Ethel sat up dazedly and pushed back the
dripping masses of her bright hair. Young Si turned and looked down at
her with a passionate light in his eyes. She put out her cold, wet
hands wistfully.
"Oh, Miles!" she whispered.
Outside, the wind shook the frail building and tore the shuddering sea
to pieces. The rain poured down. It was already settling in for a
night of storm. But, inside, Young Si's fire was casting cheery flames
over the rude room, and Young Si himself was kneeling by Ethel Lennox
with his arm about her and her head on his broad shoulder. There were
happy tears in her eyes and her voice quivered as she said, "Miles,
can you forgive me? If you knew how bitterly I have repented--"
"Never speak of the past again, my sweet. In my lonely days and nights
down here by the sea, I have forgotten all but my love."
"Miles, how did you come here? I thought you were in Europe."
"I did travel at first. I came down here by chance, and resolved to
cut myself utterly adrift from my old life and see if I could not
forget you. I was not very successful." He smiled down into her eyes.
"And you were going away tomorrow. How perilously near we have been to
not meeting! But how are we going to explain all this to our friends
along shore?"
"I think we had better not explain it at all. I will go away tomorrow,
as I intended, and you can quietly follow soon. Let 'Young Si' remain
the mystery he has always been."
"That will be best--decidedly so. They would never understand if we
did tell them. And I daresay they would be very much disappointed to
find I was not a murderer or a forger or something of that sort. They
have always credited me with an evil past. And you and I will go back
to our own world, Ethel. You will be welcome there now, sweet--my
family, too, have learned a lesson, and will do anything to promote my
happiness."
Agnes drove Ethel Lennox to the station next day. The fierce wind that
had swept over land and sea seemed to have blown away all the hazy
vapours and oppressive heats in the air, and the morning dawned as
clear and fresh as if the sad old earth with all her passionate tears
had cleansed herself from sin and stain and come forth radiantly pure
and sweet. Ethel bubbled over with joyousness. Agnes wondered at the
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