k world that there were
only they two, a man and a woman?

He could not distinguish her face, and her figure was but a light dark
outline like a silhouette against the air. But the power of her
womanhood was upon him, a something which Neckart had never felt
before--a terrible, pure passion.

"Give me the oars," he said. "Let me help you," reaching forward to
take them. His hand rested on hers accidentally: he did not remove it.
_Now_ did she understand? His mouth was closed. It seemed to him as if
words were poor to say what was in his blood, in his soul, in the water,
the air, the very ground.

She was startled, and turned to him wondering. The moon, rising higher,
showed him the childish, sensitive mouth, the dark eyes heavy with
tears, for she had been crying. What was that which gleamed through
them, half answering him, frightened at itself? It seemed to him in this
brief pause that they had been waiting all their lives for this word--he
to speak and she to hear.

"Jane!" He took her hand in both of his and held it close, and then he
threw it from him, drawing back: "My God! I had forgotten."

"Forgotten?" She closed her eyes once or twice, bewildered, as if
suddenly wakened from sleep. "You are in trouble," she said anxiously.
"Can I help you?"

The question brought him to sober reason sharply enough. It was
precisely the frank, tender tone which she would use to her father; and
the truth was, that the girl to herself did not yet distinguish between
her father and this friend. A moment before a strange emotion had
touched her. But it had passed like a warm gust of summer. There was not
a seven-year old child in the city yonder who did not know more about
love than Jane. She had never heard servants or schoolmates chatter
about it; novels had bored her; the captain, whatever he had left
undone, had kept the air pure and cold about her as for a very nun.

"What is this trouble, Mr. Neckart? You have been ill for months, I
know. Can I--? Or perhaps father--"

She leaned forward, the oars suspended in her hands, her lips apart,
attentive and eager.

He leaned over the edge of the skiff and wet his forehead and eyes,
forcing a careless laugh: "One moment, Miss Swendon, and I will explain
to you," adding presently, precisely in the manner with which he would
have discussed the weather, "We men each have our skeleton to hide,
according to popular belief, and mine is no worse than the rest. It is
the most prac