mantelpiece. Somehow those roses seemed to her to play an oddly
important part in her awakening.

"Where did they come from?" she suddenly asked.

Mrs. Peck glanced up indifferently. "They're just those little common
things that grow with the pinks on the cliff," she said.

But that did not satisfy Columbine. "Who brought them in?" she said.
"Who gathered them?"

Mrs. Peck hesitated momentarily, almost as if she did not want to
answer. Then, half defiantly, "Why, Rufus, to be sure," she said.

"Rufus!" A great hot wave of crimson suddenly suffused Columbine's
face--a pitiless, burning blush that spread tingling over her whole
body.

She lay very still while it lasted, and Mrs. Peck set down the cup and,
rising energetically, began to tidy the room.

At length, faintly, the girl spoke again: "Aunt Liza!"

Mrs. Peck turned. There was a curious look in her eyes, a look half
stern and yet half compassionate. "There, my dear, that'll do," she
said. "I think you've talked enough. The doctor said as I was to keep
you very quiet, especially when you began to get back your senses. Shut
your eyes, do, and go to sleep!"

But Columbine's eyes remained open. "I'm not sleepy," she said. "And I
must speak to you. I want to know--I must know"--she faltered painfully,
but forced herself to continue--"Rufus--did he--did he really come
back--that night?"

Mrs. Peck's compassion perceptibly diminished and her severity
increased. "Oh, if you want the whole story," she said, "you'd better
have it and have done; that is, so far as I know it myself. There are
certain ins and outs that I don't know even yet, for Rufus can be very
secretive if he likes. Well then, yes, he did come back, and he brought
Mr. Knight with him. They were washed up by a great wave that dropped
'em high and dry near the quay. Mr. Knight was half drowned, and Rufus
left him at Sam Jefferson's cottage and came on here for brandy and hot
milk and such. He wasn't a penny the worse himself, but I suppose you
thought it was his ghost. You behaved like as if you did, anyway. That's
all I can tell you. Mr. Knight he got better in a day or two, and he's
gone, said he'd had enough of it, and I don't blame him neither. Now
that'll do for the present. By and by, when you're stronger, maybe I'll
ask you to tell me something. But the doctor says as I'm not to let you
talk at present."

Mrs. Peck took up the empty cup with the words, and turned with decision
to the doo