to
look in upon her before I make myself known. I want to see Ruth--my own
Ruth--moving about her house; to feed my eyes on her good face, and
learn if it has changed as I have tried to picture it changing; to know
her as she has been during these years, not as she will be when we have
kissed and I have told her.... I would steal upon her children, too,
and watch them.... It is wonderful to think of Ruth's children!"

She sprang on to the crumbling wall, and stood erect there, shading her
eyes, gazing towards Saaron Island, where the forenoon sun flashed upon
the beaches and upon the roof of one small farm, half hidden in a fold
of the hills. The Commandant put out a hand to steady her, for her
perch was rickety and almost overhung the sea.

"Ruth is there!... To think of her so happy there--to see her, almost!
Oh, sir--but if you could understand that the nearer I have travelled
back, the more foolish my jealousy has seemed to grow, with every fear,
every doubt!"

"Miss Vashti"--the Commandant spoke seriously, still with his arm
stretched out ready to grip her by the skirt if she should over-balance
herself or the treacherous wall give way--"I am glad, for your sister's
sake, you have come; but I must warn you that all is not right on
Saaron Island."

She turned slowly, and looked down upon him there from her altitude.

"What is not right?" she asked; and, while he hesitated, "You are not
telling me that her letters have hidden anything?"

"No."

"Is it illness, then? Has anything happened to the children?"

"No," he answered again, and without more ado he told her the news he
had heard from Mrs. Banfield.

"But"--she still looked down on him wondering--"but you told me just
now that the Lord Proprietor was a just man?"

"I have not looked at the rights and wrongs of the case," he said
hastily, conscious that he was incurring her scorn. "The Lord
Proprietor may have much to say on his side."

"You have not inquired, then?"

"The news came to me only this morning, quite by chance."

"By chance?" she caught him up, and, springing off the wall, stood on
the firm turf facing him. "But you are, or were, Governor of the
Islands."

Again he bent his head. "I have told you that I no longer serve the
Council even. The Lord Proprietor does not consult me."

Vashti gazed around her, on the broken roof of the ammunition shed, the
dismantled platform, the unkempt glacis below it. "For what work, then,
do they pa