ith torn documents. This puzzled her again, and her
brow contracted in a frown. But just then she caught the sound of the
Commandant's footsteps returning along the flagged passage, and bent
anew over the fire.

The Commandant appeared in the doorway with a plate of ship's biscuit
in his hand, and on his face a flush of extreme embarrassment.

"Do you know, I really am ashamed of myself," he began with a stammer,
holding out the plate. "But Archelaus has gone to bed, and--and this is
all I can find."

"Capital!" she answered gaily. "Let us break into the back premises and
forage. After my burglarious entry that will just suit my mood."

"I'm afraid--" he began, and hesitated. "I am very much afraid--" There
was unmistakable trouble in his voice, and again he came to a halt.

Vashti straightened herself up. Her eyes were on him as he set the
plate down on the table, but he avoided them, attempting a small forced
laugh. The laugh was a dead failure. Silence followed it, and in the
silence he felt horribly aware that she was grasping the truth--the
humiliating truth; that moment by moment the scales were falling from
her eyes that still persistently sought his.

The silence was broken by the noise of a poker falling against the
fender. He started, met her gaze for a moment, and again averted his.

"You don't mean to say----"

Her voice trailed off, in pitiful surmise. Silence again; and in the
silence he heard her sink back into the arm chair--and knew no more
until, at the sound of one strangling sob, terrible to hear, he found
himself standing at the arm of her chair and bending over her.

"My dear!" He used the familiar Island speech. "My dear, you must
not--please!"

"And I have been living on you, ruining you!"

"My dear ... it is all paid for. It was paid for to-day. If ever a man
was glad of his guest, I am he."

But she bent her head over the arm of the chair, sobbing silently. He
saw the heave of her shoulders, and it afflicted him beyond words. But,
though he longed, he dared not put out a hand to comfort her.

"You mistake--yes, you mistake.... It has been nothing.... I was only
too glad," he kept stammering weakly.

She pulled herself together and sat upright. A moment her tear-stained
eyes met his, then turned to the fire, which had begun to dance again
on its small heap of coals.

"Now I see," said she, resting an elbow on the arm of the chair and so
supporting her chin, while she stared res