always will be. Love is only an illusion, but friendship endless.
And now, good-by, and God bless you!"

And Winn, going out into the night, knew that the proud girl was reaping
the pain she had sown.

CHAPTER XLVII

LOVE ETERNAL

The first warm days of spring had come to Rockhaven ere Mona and her
parents returned. The sunny slopes back of the village were growing
green, the tulips and daffodils in Mona's dooryard just peeping out, the
gulls on the cliffs nest-building, the fishermen painting their boats
and mending nets, Parson Bush, with two helpers, thanks to Rockhaven
stock, shingling the church, and life on the island budding forth into
vernal activity. No hint of Mona's proud life in the city and wonderful
triumph had reached those people, and the Hutton family were welcomed
back as returning from a pleasure trip.

It was Mona's expressed wish that no mention be made of her musical
ambition and its success, and as her desires were now law with Jess and
her mother, she was obeyed. Captain Roby had told them of Winn's
astonishing and unexpected visit before they set foot on the island; and
it was repeated by many others with sundry comments, all converging to
one end, Mrs. Moore's being the most pointed, perhaps, and therefore
best to quote.

"I think," said that well-intentioned gossip-monger to Mona, "he come
here to make ye a visit, more 'speshly, though he said he wanted to see
what could be done 'bout settin' the quarry a-goin'. He called on me,
and the only thing he seemed to listen to with any sort o' interest was
'bout you goin' away and when you was like to come back. I never seen a
feller act more love-struck than he was, an' more out o' sorts. He even
went a wandering over the island in the snow, like as if he was
demented."

All this was a revelation to Mona, and unaccountable. At first it
provoked her silent derision and increased the bitterness and almost
hatred which she had come to feel toward this erstwhile lover.

Mona Hutton was what country people would call a strange compound: a
product of a lone sea island, of its storms and the unceasing booming of
billows; of days, weeks, and months spent alone, where only the ocean
voiced eternity; of the whispers of winds in spruce thickets, of the
gorge and the cave where she hid herself; of her own moods, sad, solemn,
and contemplative. She had grown up close to God, but distant from man.
The flowers blooming in her dooryard, the wild ro