, 1910-03-31

HIS story could not be hid. peither
could hers. The man would be court
ed, sought after, made much over. be-
loved. 1t would be enough to turn the
head of a saint. How would he stand
IT,! would the recollection OF her
make him strong? Would that God in
whom he and she both had trusted
until the crisis came, lead him in the
straight path? Would her purity. her
sweetness-stop! would he think her
thus lowered and possessed? Not
now. certainly. but every hour that
took him farther from her would add
to his knowledge and would tell him
the truth and these would help him.
Another thought came into her
mind. His story would be known and
hers as well. The world was filled
with adventurous men. Would not
some of them come in search OF her
island? h officers of those two ships
could determine accurately the situa-
ton of that island. It would be as
easy for a navigator to find 1t as for a
denizen of a city to go to any given
street corner. People would come
back to that island, not to seek her.
for the world would believe her dead,
but simply to see the place. Idle
yachtsmen might find that an object
for long cruising and she would have
to hide and hide. But would she hide?
Would she go back to that world?
Never, she said, unless he came to
fetch her.
And then her thoughts turned again.
Why had he gone away? Had she
been he they could as soon have up.
rooted the island itself as torn her
from it under similar circumstances.
Had he been gone, she would have
fingered and died on the spots that
were sacred where he had walked. II
she had known that at that momen
her lover lay fighting for life and rea-
son in the cabin of the swift moving
ship. she would nave understood bet
ter his absence. That he should be
stricken occurred to her.
She pictured him, not happy away
from her, overwhelmed by her death
surely. saddened beyond present com.
fort it must be, yet so occupied that
insensibly his grief would be light
ened by the only thing after all that
makes life bearable in certain con-
tingencies, and that is work. Work!
She, too, had work to do.
She rose to her feet doggedly as she
thought of that and considered what
she could do. Her eyes fell upon the
ashes of the signal fire. She contem-
plated it as the specter of some Hindu
woman whose body had been barned
upon such an affair might look upon
her pyre. 1t was she who had lighted
the beacon Her hand had called the
world to her side. She thought how
he had begged her not to do so, how
he had declared himself content and
happy to live with her alone-the
world forgetting, by the world forgot!
For the first time she broke down
completely. She buried her face in
with sobs, the tears trickled through
her fingers.
She must make another beacon, she
thought. And then 1t came to her that
they had taken away the flint and
steel. She had no means of lighting it.
That realization developed other
thoughts. Her Bible was gone; her
clothes were gone; her toilet articles,
her scissors, her watch, her knife.
They had taken everything. They had
left her nothing, absolutely nothing.
What did it matter? She could dress
herself with fern leaves and make
shifts to bind them about her with
cords that she could plait of the grass
which should tear with her sweet
strong hands. And what did 1t matter
what she wore? There was no one
there to see. But for the long habit
of modesty, she would have torn away
and thrown aside the make-shifts that
fell from her shoulders.