s I'm very wobbly on my legs. I might by
accident drop into your lap."

Agatha pushed her chair over toward James, and before she could sit
down he had drawn it still closer to his own. "The doctor says my hand
has to be held!" he assured her, as he got firm hold of hers.

"For shame!" she cried. "Mustn't tell fibs."

"Tell me," he begged, "is this your house, really'n truly?" It
brought, as he knew it would, her ready smile.

"Yep," she nodded.

"And is that your tree out there?"

"Yep."

"Ah!" he sighed. "It's great! It's Paradise. I've dreamed of just
such a heavenly place. And Andy says we've been here two weeks."

"Yes--and a little more."

"My holiday half gone!" His mood suddenly changed from its jocund and
boyish manner, and he turned earnestly toward Agatha.

"I don't know, dear girl, all that has happened since that night--with
you--on the water. Hand shuts me off most villainously. But I know
it's Heaven being here, with Aleck and every one so good to me, and
you! You've come back, somehow, like a reality from my dreams. I
watch for you. You're all I think of, whether I'm awake or asleep."

Agatha earnestly regarded his frank face, with its laughing, true eyes.
"Jimmy," she said--he had begged her to call him that--"it seems as if
I, too, had known you a long time. More than these little two weeks."

"It is more; you said so," put in Jim.

"Yes; a little more. And if it hadn't been for you, I shouldn't be
here, or anywhere. I often think of that."

"You see!" he cried. "I had to have you, even if I followed you
half-way round the globe; even if I had to jump into the sea.
Kismet--you can't escape me!"

But Agatha was only half smiling. "No," she protested, "it is not
that. I owe--"

Jim put his fingers on her lips. "Tut, tut! Dear girl, you owe
nothing, except to your own courage and good swimming. But as for me,
why, you know I'm yours."

"James," Agatha could not help preaching a bit, "just because we happen
to be the actors in an adventure is no reason, no real reason, why we
should be silly about each other. We don't have to end the story that
way."

"Oh, don't we! We'll see!" shouted Jim. "And I'm not silly, if some
other people are. I don't see why I should be cheated out of a
perfectly good climax, if you put it that way, any more than the next
fellow. Agatha, dearest--"

But she wouldn't listen to him. "No, no," she protested, slowly but
earnestly