The St. Johns herald., 1902-02-08
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 WOMAN'S HAND
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 nodded in the direction of little un , painted board shack some fifty yards off among the sands.
 Mrs. Kent covered her face with heI ! palms while she gained time to try and think of something as dramatic and con else. But her own appearance did not lend itself to narrative of the kind. She made a broken murmur, vague with hints of her own deep wretchedness do instead. Henesly did not answer only turned on his heel and led the way to the landing-steps.
 When he had brought the boat down from the davits and up to the steps, he held out his hand to help her In. She laid her own hand upon it, and be shiv. cred and stiffened under the touch. She had expected that. Her hands had been his dearest delight, of old. They were the hands of Mona Lisa, of beauty of the steel-engraving days, and when they touched they clung, like 6 small too. They settled the oars in the locks, and pulled off skillfully. Henesly went back to the boat house, but he watched her through a space in the boards as she cut off over the opal-hued water.
 He was there to help her out when she came back. When she asked if she might use the noat next morning he told her yes. He explained it to him. self as being proper pride, and that she should not fancy him afraid. After a day or two he altered the explanation to that it couldn't matter any way, and after that he did not try to explain. He let things go. At this point she lin gered, sitting upon the keel of a yaWl up for repairs, and talked about her self in hopeless vein. The ensuing steps were talk about himself. He re- sponded fairly easily, and showed her his drawings, his tools, and the new gasoline engine band saw which was his especial pride. He taught her how to start the engine up, and to cut along traced lines through the hardest wood with the toothed band of steel.
 It was inevitable, thereafter, that they should-having had herself and himself-come to themselves. And when that happened-it was about the tenth day of her normal and healthy life-much more did as we'll. So that when she started to go at last, and stood, beautiful in the midst of all the roughness around, his head went com pletely, and he caught her hand against his lips and held it there. It was de- light and bliss and temporary oblivion to him. It was the success of an ex- pertinent to her, and the point beyond which she did not mean to go, for her wisdom was of this world.
 But to Maria, Henesly's Portuguese wife-who was under the boat house. peering up through knot hole-it was rage and jealousy of very savage kind. She had had her suspicious of the woman who came so often and for so long at break of day, and now she was verifying them. AS for what they said, the two, she could neither hear nor understand all of that. Her En- glish was limited. But she saw Henesly kissing the shapely hand, and there was nothing incomprehensible about that.
 If Henesly had had the slightest idea of what Maria had seen, he would have been justified in being uneasy and in recalling the warning of one of those poets of his better days anent mute natures which punish you in deeds. For Maria gave no sign at all. She only waited her time. It came very soon. The same night Henesly was called upon to repair the hull of launch, and he had to be up until long past midnight, working with lanterns, 10 take advantage of the tide. The con- sequence was that he overslept himself the next day. Maria, however, did not. She arose early and went out.
 When Mrs. Kent came, humming a snatch of song that she knew would be calculated to awaken memories in Henesly, Maria was hidden behind a pile of lumber in the dark corner where the gasoline engine was, lying in wait, with big knife up her sleeve. Mrs. Kent had 10 suspicion of that. She wandered around the boat house, play ing with various things, and finally, as the time grew long, she went over to the corner and amused herself by start shown her how to do. The gasoline engine began to spit and hiss, and the shiny contrivances, whose names she did not know, to chatter and turn. The saw-edged band itself began to whir so very fast that it seemed to be quite still. She held scrap of wood against 1t and watched it cut smoothly in two without jar.
 When she looked up she could see HeEesly hurry over along the path through the dunes from his shack. She stopped playing with the saw, and stood waiting for him, beginning the strain of song again. Her hand was lying close to the moving band Maria raised her self up in the shadow and looked at it. It was so white, so small, so near the turning saw. It was the same hand that Henesly had kissed the day before.
 The whir of the machinery was in Mrs. Rents ears. The light of the low rays falling through the open door was in her eyes. She did not hear the boards behind her creak. She did not see that some one was coming nearer and near CT, with hot eyes watching that white and careless hand
 The engine was Splitting and clatter-