nd, reassured upon that point,
Helen happily and promptly would forget all about him.

But when she remembered him, although months had passed since she had
seen him, she remembered him much more distinctly, much more gratefully,
than that one of the two hundred and fifty with whom she had walked that
same afternoon. Latimer could not know it, but of that anxious multitude
he was first, and there was no second. At least Helen hoped, when she
was ready to marry, she would love Latimer enough to want to marry him.
But as yet she assured herself she did not want to marry any one. As she
was, life was very satisfactory. Everybody loved her, everybody invited
her to be of his party, or invited himself to join hers, and the object
of each seemed to be to see that she enjoyed every hour of every day.
Her nature was such that to make her happy was not difficult. Some of
her devotees could do it by giving her a dance and letting her invite
half of Boston, and her kid brother could do it by taking her to
Cambridge to watch the team at practice.

She thought she was happy because she was free. As a matter of fact, she
was happy because she loved some one and that particular some one loved
her. Her being "free" was only her mistaken way of putting it. Had she
thought she had lost Latimer and his love, she would have discovered
that, so far from being free, she was bound hand and foot and heart and
soul.

But she did not know that, and Latimer did not know that.

Meanwhile, from the branch of the tree in the sheltered, secret
hiding-place that overlooked the ocean, the sailorman kept watch. The
sun had blistered him, the storms had buffeted him, the snow had frozen
upon his shoulders. But his loyalty never relaxed. He spun to the
north, he spun to the south, and so rapidly did he scan the surrounding
landscape that no one could hope to creep upon him unawares. Nor,
indeed, did any one attempt to do so. Once a fox stole into the secret
hiding-place, but the sailorman flapped his oars and frightened him
away. He was always triumphant. To birds, to squirrels, to trespassing
rabbits he was a thing of terror. Once, when the air was still, an
impertinent crow perched on the very limb on which he stood, and with
scornful, disapproving eyes surveyed his white trousers, his blue
reefer, his red cheeks. But when the wind suddenly drove past them the
sailorman sprang into action and the crow screamed in alarm and darted
away. So, alone and