ncerned expression. "It might
be, if it were eleven o'clock in the morning. But it's the wrong end of
the day. It will be dark before long." He paused, then asked swiftly:
"Does any one at Sunnyside know where you are this afternoon?"

"No. The doctor and Molly were both out to lunch--and you know we only
planned this trip this morning. I haven't seen them since. Why do you
ask?"

"Because, if they know, they'd send over in search of us if we didn't
turn up in the course of the next hour or so. But if they don't know
where you are, we stand an excellent chance of spending the night here."

The gravity of what had first struck her as merely an amusing
_contretemps_ suddenly presented itself to Sara.

"Oh!--!" She drew her breath in sharply. "What--what on earth shall we
do?"

"Do?" Garth spoke with grim force. "Why, you must be got off the island
somehow. If not, you're fair game for every venomous tongue in the
town."

"Would any one hear us from the shore if we shouted?" she suggested.

He shook his head.

"No. The sound would carry in the opposite direction to-day."

"Then what _can_ we do?"

By this time the manifest anxiety in Trent's face was reflected in her
own. The possibility that they might be compelled to spend the night
on Devil's Hood Island was not one that could be contemplated with
equanimity, for Sara had no illusions whatever as to the charitableness
of the view the world at large would take of such an episode--however
accidental its occurrence. Unfortunately, essential innocence is
frequently but a poor tool wherewith to scotch a scandal.

"There is only one thing to be done," said Garth at last, after
fruitlessly scanning the waters for any stray fishing-boat that might be
passing. "I must swim across, and then row back and take you off."

"Swim across?" Sara regarded the distance between the island and the
shore with consternation. "You couldn't possibly do it. It's too far."

"Just under a mile."

"But you would have the tide against you," she urged. The current off
the coast ran with dangerous rapidity between the mainland and the
island, and more than one strong swimmer, as Sara knew, had lost his
life struggling against it.

She looked across to the further shore again, and all at once it seemed
impossible to let Garth make the attempt.

"No! no! You can't go!" she exclaimed.

"You wouldn't be nervous at being alone here?" he asked doubtfully.

She stamped her foot.

"No