at afternoon when the
old chest was broken open, and his refusal to make any further
explanation of Cap'n Abe's absence, pinched out Louise's courage as one
might pinch out a candle wick.

That suspicion was rife in the community, and that the story of the
strange contents of Cap'n Abe's chest had spread like a prairie fire,
Louise was sure. Yet at supper time Cap'n Amazon was as calm and
cheerful as usual and completely ignored the accident of the afternoon.

"Hi-mighty likely mess of tautog you caught, Louise," he said, ladling
the thick white gravy dotted with crumbly yellow egg yolk upon her
plate with lavish hand. "That Lawford Tapp knows where the critters
school, if he doesn't know much else."

"Oh, Uncle Amazon! I think he is a very intelligent young man. Only
he wastes his time so!"

"He knows enough book l'arnin', I do allow," agreed Cap'n Amazon. "But
fritters away his time as you say. They all do that over to Tapp
P'int, I cal'late."

"I wonder how it came to be called Tapp Point?" Louise asked, with a
suddenly sharpened curiosity.

"'Cause it's belonged to the Tapps since away back,--or, so Cap'n Joab
says. That sand heap never was wuth a punched nickel a ton till these
city folks began to build along The Beaches."

Louise, in her own mind, immediately constructed another theory about
Lawford Tapp, "the fisherman's son." The sandy point had been sold to
the builder of the very ornate villa now crowning it, and the proceeds
of that sale had paid for the _Merry Andrew_ sloop and the expensive
fishing rod and the clothes of superquality which the young man wore.

She shrank, however, from commenting upon this extravagant and
spendthrift trait in his character, even to Uncle Amazon. Nor would
she have spoken to anybody else upon the subject.

Something had happened to Louise Grayling on this adventurous
afternoon--something of which she scarcely dared think, let alone talk!

The grip of fear at her heart when she thought Lawford was drowning had
startled her as much as the accident itself. She had seen men in peril
before--in deadly peril--without feeling any personal terror for their
fate.

In that moment when Lawford was sinking and she was preparing to leap
to his aid, Louise had realized this fact. And in her inmost soul she
admitted--with a thrill that shook her physically as well as
spiritually--that her interest in this Cape Cod fisherman's son was an
interest rooted in her inmos