She made no demur, and helping her into the canoe, he thrust the light
craft off, and, with a sturdy stroke of the paddle, drove it out into
the Inlet. It was a thing he was used to, for he had painfully driven
ruder craft of that kind up wildly-frothing rivers, and the girl
noticed the powerful swing of his shoulders and the rhythmic splash of
his paddle, though there were other things that had their effect on
her--the languid lapping of the brine on shingle, and the gurgle round
the canoe, that seemed to be sliding out towards the moonlight through
a world of unsubstantial shadow. She admitted that the man interested
her. He had a quick wit and a whimsical fancy that appealed to her,
but he had also hard, workman's hands, and he managed the canoe as she
imagined one who had undertaken such things professionally would have
done.

When the shimmering blaze of moonlight lay close in front of them, he
let his paddle trail in the water for a moment or two, and, turning,
glanced back at the house on the bluff. Its lower windows blinked
patches of warm orange light against the dusky pines.

"That," he said, "in one respect typifies all you are accustomed to.
It stands for the things you know. Aren't you a little afraid of
leaving it behind you?"

"I think I suggested that you were accustomed to them, too!"

Nasmyth laughed. "Oh," he said, "I was turned out of that world a long
while ago. We are going to see a different one together."

"The one you know?"

"Well," returned the man reflectively, "I'm not quite sure that I do.
It's the one I live in, but that doesn't go very far after all. Now
and then I think one could live in the wilderness a lifetime without
really knowing it. There's an elusive something in or behind it that
evades one--the mystery that hides in all grandeur and beauty. Still,
there's a peril in it. Like the moonlight, it gets hold of you."

The girl fancied that she understood him, but she wondered how far it
was significant that they should slide out into the flood of radiance
together when he once more drove the light craft ahead.

The smooth sea shimmered like molten silver about the canoe, and ran
in sparkling drops from the dripping paddle. The bluff hung high above
them, a tremendous shadowy wall, and the sweet scent of the firs came
off from it with the little land breeze. They swung out over the
smooth levels that heaved with a slow, rhythmic pulsation, and Nasmyth
wondered whether he wa