not springtime an answer?" he asked, then added: "I am going away
to-day. I came for one last ride."

She looked at him for a few moments, evidently supposing that he
intended to go to Harbour Island to wait there for his ship. If that
were so, it seemed that she felt no further responsibility about her
conduct to him. His heart sank to see that her joy in the spring and the
morning was such that the thought of parting did not apparently grieve
her much.

In a moment more her eyes flashed at him with the laughter at his
expense which he knew so well; she tried not to laugh as she spoke, but
could not help it.

"I have been visiting the band of men who were going to murder you the
night you came. Would you like to see them?"

"If you will take care of me."

As she turned and rode before him he heard her laughing.

"There," she said, stopping and pointing to the ground--"there is the
place where the quicksand was. I have not gone over it this morning.
Sometimes they last from one season to another; sometimes they change
themselves in a few days. I was dreadfully frightened when we began to
sink, but it was you who saved the pony."

"Don't," said Caius--"don't attempt to make the best of me. I would
rather be laughed at." He spoke lightly, without feeling, and that
seemed to please her.

"I think," she said candidly, "we behaved very badly; but it was
O'Shea's fault--I only enjoyed it. And I don't see what else we could
have done, because those two French sailors had to watch if anyone came
to steal from the wreck, and they were going to help us so far as to go
to the sheds on the cliff for boards to get up the cart; but O'Shea
could not have stayed all night with the bags unless I had left him my
coat as well as his own."

"You might have trusted me," said Caius. Still he spoke with no
sensibility; she grew more at her ease.

"O'Shea wouldn't; and I couldn't control O'Shea. And then we had to meet
so often, that I could not bear that you should know I had worn a man's
coat. I had to do it, for I couldn't drive home any other way." Here a
pause, and her mind wandered to another recollection. "Those men we met
brought us word that one of my friends was so ill; I had to hurry to
him. In my heart I thought you would not respect me because I had worn a
man's coat; and because---- Yes, it was very naughty of me indeed to
behave as I did in the water that summer. Even then I did try to get
O'Shea to let me walk wit