shipping in the calm moonlight, the quiet afterglow of a holiday
evening seemed to have shed itself over her thoughts. She knew from her
friend's message that she was ignorant of what had passed between
herself and Carl Beck; and although it was a relief to think that he had
not taken his disappointment more to heart, the smile that played about
her lips for a moment showed at the same time that his love had been
duly appraised. As the shadow, then, of the window-frame in the
moonlight, crept slowly over the wall above her bed, her thoughts glided
off in the direction they loved best to take--over the world and far
away to Salve.

She sat with her heavy hair falling loose over her well-shaped
shoulders, and her face grew more and more sorrowful in its absent
expression, and would twitch occasionally with pain. The bitter thought
would recur that it was she who was the cause of Salve's going out into
the world and becoming a desperate man. The thought haunted her; and
yet, much as she wished to free herself from it, she found a pleasure in
dwelling on it. She saw him, in fancy, miserable and proud, with his
pale face and keen, clever eyes fixed upon her in hatred, as the cause
of his unhappiness, and then the idea occurred to her to put on sailor's
clothes and go and seek him out in the world. But if she were to find
him, she knew, on the other hand, that for very shame she dared not show
herself before him, having as good as belonged to another; and she would
not for all the world read her hard dismissal in his eye. She laid her
head upon her arms on the window-sill and sobbed convulsively, until at
length she dropped off to sleep where she sat.

She had been three years in the Garvloits' house when Garvloit had the
misfortune to run his vessel aground out near Amland, where she became a
wreck. He lost with her nearly all he had in the world, and what was
worse, all prospect of livelihood for the future as skipper.

An uncomfortable feeling prevailed now in the house, and Elizabeth saw
with regret that she would have to leave. Garvloit, who in figure
resembled some thick, short-legged animal of the sea, a seal or walrus
come on land, had become perceptibly reduced in flesh, and went about
all day long in his shirtsleeves, fanning himself with a large silk
pocket-handkerchief. On one particular afternoon it was observed that he
indulged in this exercise with more than his usual vigour and
restlessness; and it was not w