have expected, good measure pressed down and running
over. The limit was now reached. He should practise restraint--leave the
whole, affair where it stood. But the effect of this darkness, and of
drifting, drifting, over the black water in the fine soundless rain, with
its illusion of permanence, and of the extinction of to-morrow--and the
retributions and adjustments in which to-morrow is so frequently and
inconveniently fertile--enervated him, rendering him a comparatively easy
prey to impulse, should impulse chance to be stirred by some adventitious
circumstance. The Devil, it may be presumed, is very much on the watch
for such weakenings of moral fibre, ready to pounce, at the very shortest
notice, and make unholy play with them!

To Faircloth's ruminative eyes, the paleness in the stern of the boat,
indicating Damaris Verity's drooping figure, altered slightly in outline.
Whereupon he shipped the oars skillfully and quietly, and going aft knelt
down in front of her. Her feet were stretched out as, bowed together, she
sat on the low seat. His jacket had slipped away exposing them to the
weather, and the young man laying his hands on them felt them cold as in
death. He held them, chafed them, trying to restore some degree of
circulation. Finally, moved by a great upwelling of tenderness and of
pity, and reckoning her, since she gave no sign, to be asleep, he bent
down and put his lips to them.

But immediately the girl's hands were upon his shoulders.

"What are you doing, oh! what are you doing?" she cried.

"Kissing your feet."

Then the Devil, no doubt, flicking him, he let go restraint, disobeyed
his own orders, raised his head, and looking at her as in the enfolding
obscurity she leaned over him, said:

"And, if it comes to that, who in all the round world has a better right
than I, your brother, to kiss your feet?"

For some, to him, intolerable and interminable seconds, Faircloth waited
after he had shot his bolt. The water whispered and chuckled against the
boat's sides in lazy undertones, as it floated down the sluggish stream.
Beyond this there was neither sound nor movement. More than ever might
time be figured to stand still. His companion's hands continued to rest
upon his shoulders. Her ghostly, dimly discerned face was so near his own
that he could feel, now and again, her breath upon his forehead; but she
was silent. As yet he did not repent of his cruelty. The impulse which
dictated it had no