ut him at the
beach, at the boats, at the lighthouse on the cliff above, with a
clothes-line near it, spread with flapping garments. When he looked, not
outward, but inward, and saw Josephine's vision of life, he believed he
ought to go forward and beat off the serpent from the dove.

The colloquy was not very long. Then O'Shea led Josephine's horse nearer
to Caius.

"Madame and my wife will go with ye," he said. "I've told the men to get
the boat out."

"I did not say that," moaned Josephine.

Her face was buried in her hands, and Caius remembered how those pretty
white hands had at one time beckoned to him, and at another had angrily
waved him away. Now they were held helplessly before a white face that
was convulsed with fear and shame and self-abandonment.

"There ain't no particular hurry," remarked O'Shea soothingly; "but
Mammy has packed up all in the houses that needs to go, and she'll bring
warm clothes and all by the time the boat's out, so there's no call for
madame to go back. It would be awful unkind to the girls to set them
crying; and"--this to Caius--"ye jist go and put up yer things as quick
as ye can."

His words were accompanied by the sound of the fishermen putting rollers
under the small schooner that had been selected. The old skipper,
Pierre, had begun to call out his orders. Josephine took her hands from
her face suddenly, and looked towards the busy men with such eager
hungry desire for the freedom they were preparing for her that it seemed
to Caius that at that moment his own heart broke, for he saw that
Josephine was not convinced but that she had yielded. He knew that
Mammy's presence on the journey made no real difference in its guilt
from Josephine's standpoint; her duty to her God was to remain at her
post. She had flinched from it out of mere cowardice--it was a fall.
Caius knew that he had no choice but to help her back to her better
self, that he would be a bastard if he did not do it.

Three times he essayed to speak; he had not the right words; then, even
without them, he broke the silence hurriedly:

"I think you are justified in coming with me; but if you do what you
believe to be wrong--you will regret it. What does your heart say?
Think!"

It was a feeble, stammered protest; he felt no dignity in it; he almost
felt it to be the craven insult seen in it by O'Shea, who swore under
his breath and glared at him.

Josephine gave only a long sobbing sigh, as one awakening f