for it," she answered presently, with a strange
gentleness. "It is because you met me at a critical time.
Such-coincidences often occur in life. I happened to be a woman; and, I
confess it, a woman who was interested. I could not have been interested
if you had been less real, less sincere. But I saw that you were going
through a crisis; that you might, with your powers, build up your life
into a splendid and useful thing. And, womanlike, my instinct was to help
you. I should not have allowed you to go on, but--but it all happened so
quickly that I was bewildered. I--I do not understand it myself."

He listened hungrily, and yet at times with evident impatience.

"No," he said, "I cannot believe that it was an accident. It was you--"

She stopped him with an imploring gesture.

"Please," she said, "please let us go in."

Without an instant's hesitation he brought the sloop about and headed her
for the light-ship on Brenton's reef, and they sailed in silence. Awhile
she watched the sapphire waters break to dazzling whiteness under the
westerning sun. Then, in an ecstasy she did not seek to question, she
closed her eyes to feel more keenly the swift motion of their flight. Why
not? The sea, the winds of heaven, had aided others since the dawn of
history. Legend was eternally true. On these very shores happiness had
awaited those who had dared to face primeval things.

She looked again, this time towards an unpeopled shore. No sentinel
guarded the uncharted reefs, and the very skies were smiling, after the
storm, at the scudding fates.

It was not until they were landlocked once more, and the Folly was
reluctantly beating back through the Narrows, that he spoke again.

"So you wish me to go away?"

"I cannot see any use in your staying," she replied, "after what you have
said. I--cannot see," she added in a low voice, "that for you to remain
would be to promote the happiness of--either of us. You should have gone
to-day."

"You care!" he exclaimed.

"It is because I do not wish to care that I tell you to go--"

"And you refuse happiness?"

"It could be happiness for neither of us," said Honora. "The situation
would be impossible. You are not a man who would be satisfied with
moderation. You would insist upon having all. And you do not know what
you are asking."

"I know that I want you," he said, "and that my life is won or lost with
or without you."

You have no right to say such a thing."

"We have ea