calmly.

"Honestly; I slept so long down there on the beach--"

"Please don't try to deceive me. I know that slumbers like those--of
exhaustion--don't rest one as they should. Besides, you show how tired
you are in every gesture, in the way you carry yourself, in your very
eyes."

"You're mistaken," he contended, looking away for fear lest his eyes
were indeed betraying him. "Besides, I mean merely to sit up here, to
see that everything is all right."

"How should it be otherwise?" She laughed the thought away, yet not
unkindly. "This island is as empty as a last-year's bird's-nest. What
could happen to harm, or even alarm us--or me?"

"You never can tell--"

"Nonsense! I'm not in the least frightened. And furthermore I shan't
sleep a wink--shan't even try to sleep unless you promise me not to be
silly. There's a comfortable room right at the foot of the stairs. If
you sleep there, I shall feel more than secure. Will you promise?"

He gave in at discretion: "Yes; I promise."

"As soon as you feel the least need of sleep, you'll go to bed?"

"I promise."

"Very well, then."

The insistent note faded from her tones. She moved toward the table, put
the lamp down, and hesitated in one of her strange, unpresaged moods of
diffidence, looking down at the finger-tips with which she traced a
meaningless pattern on the oil-cloth.

"You are kind," she said abruptly, her head bowed, her face hidden from
him.

"Kind!" he echoed, dumfounded.

"You are kind and sweet and generous to me," she insisted in a level
voice. "You have shown me your heart--the heart of a gentleman--without
reserve; but of me you have asked nothing."

"I don't understand--"

"I mean, you haven't once referred to what happened last night. You've
been content to let me preserve my confidence, to remain secretive and
mysterious in your sight.... That is how I seem to you--isn't it?"

"Secretive and mysterious? But I have no right to your confidence; your
affairs are yours, inviolable, unless you choose to discuss them."

"You would think that way--of course!" Suddenly she showed him her face
illumined with its frank, shadowy smile, her sweet eyes, kind and as
fearless as the eyes of a child. "Other men would not, I know. And you
have every right to know."

"I--!"

"You; and I shall tell you.... But not now; there's too much to tell, to
explain and make understandable; and I'm too terribly tired. To-morrow,
perhaps--or when we escape fr