world of sea and islands shining
in the early sunlight, Mr. White and his daughter were down by the
shore, walking along the white sands, and chatting idly as they went.
From time to time they looked across the fair summer seas to the distant
cliffs of Bourg; and each time they looked a certain small white speck
seemed coming nearer. That was the _Umpire_; and Keith Macleod was on
board of her. He had started at an unknown hour of the night to bring
the yacht over from her anchorage. He would not have his beautiful
Fionaghal, who had come as a stranger to these far lands, go back to
Dare in a common open boat with stones for ballast.

"This is the loneliest place I have ever seen," Miss Gertrude White was
saying on this the third morning after her arrival. "It seems scarcely
in the world at all. The sea cuts you off from everything you know; it
would have been nothing if we had come by rail."

They walked on in silence, the blue waves beside them curling a crisp
white on the smooth sands.

"Pappy," said she, at length, "I suppose if I lived here for six months
no one in England would know anything about me? If I were mentioned at
all, they would think I was dead. Perhaps some day I might meet some one
from England; and I would have to say, 'Don't you know who I am? Did you
never hear of one called Gertrude White? I was Gertrude White.'"

"No doubt," said her father, cautiously.

"And when Mr. Lemuel's portrait of me appears in the Academy, people
would be saying, 'Who is that?' _Miss Gertrude White, as Juliet?_ Ah,
there was an actress of that name. Or was she an amateur? She married
somebody in the Highlands. I suppose she is dead now?"

"It is one of the most gratifying instances, Gerty, of the position you
have made," her father observed, in his slow and sententious way, "that
Mr. Lemuel should be so willing, after having refused to exhibit at the
Academy for so many years, to make an exception in the case of your
portrait."

"Well, I hope my face will not get burned by the sea-air and the sun,"
she said. "You know he wants two or three more sittings. And do you
know, pappy, I have sometimes thought of asking you to tell me
honestly--not to encourage me with flattery, you know--whether my face
has really that high-strung pitch of expression when I am about to drink
the poison in the cell. Do I really look like Mr. Lemuel's portrait of
me?"

"It is your very self, Gerty," her father said, with decision. "But