y for you to go away?"

The restraint Nasmyth had imposed upon himself suddenly deserted him.
He moved a little nearer to her, and seized one of her hands. She sat
still, and made no effort to draw it away from him.

"I had never meant to say what I am going to say just now," he
declared. "I had meant to wait until there was something successfully
accomplished to my credit. I am, you see, a thriftless, wandering
adventurer--one who has taken things as they came, and never has been
serious. When I have shown that I can also be something else, I shall
ask you formally if you will marry me. Until then the thing is, of
course, out of the question."

He broke off for a moment, and held her silent by a gesture until he
went on again. "I have been swept away, and even if you were willing
to make it, I would take no promise from you. Until I have won the
right to come back you must be absolutely free. Now you know this, it
would be very much wiser if I went away as soon as possible."

"Ah," the girl answered with a thrill in her voice, "whenever you come
back you will find me ready to listen to you."

Nasmyth let her hand go. "Now," he asserted, "I think I cannot fail.
Still, it must be remembered that you are absolutely free."

He would have said something more, but there was just then a laugh and
a patter of feet on the path above, and, looking up, he saw two of
Mrs. Acton's guests descending the bluff.

CHAPTER XX

NASMYTH GOES AWAY

Mrs. Acton was sitting on the veranda next morning when Nasmyth,
fresh from a swim in the deep cold water of the inlet, came up
across the clearing. It had brought a clear glow into his bronzed
skin and a brightness to his eyes, and as he flung a word to a man
who greeted him, his laugh had a clean, wholesome ring. He walked
straight toward the veranda, and Mrs. Acton, sitting still, favoured
him with a very keen and careful scrutiny. He was dressed in light
flannels, which, she admitted, became him rather well; but it was
the lithe gracefulness of his movements that she noticed most. His
easy, half-whimsical manner had their effect on her; they won her
favour. He was the kind of guest she had pleasure in welcoming at
Bonavista.

He went up the veranda stairway, and, stopping near where she was
sitting, looked down at her with a curious little glow in his eyes.
She started, for she had not expected to see it there so soon.

"You seem unusually satisfied with everything this