ped in an
atmosphere of defeat. He relinquished the wheel, but remained seated,
drooping at his post. The indefatigable Halvard proceeded with the
efficient discharge of his narrow, exacting duties. After a short
space John Woolfolk descended to the cabin, where, on an unmade berth,
he fell immediately asleep.

He woke to a dim interior and twilight gathering outside. He
shaved--without conscious purpose--with meticulous care, and put on
the blue flannel coat. Later he rowed himself ashore and proceeded
directly through the orange grove to the house beyond.

Millie Stope was seated on the portico, and laid a restraining hand on
her father's arm as he rose, attempting to retreat at Woolfolk's
approach. The latter, with a commonplace greeting, resumed his place.

Millie's face was dim and potent in the gloom, and Lichfield Stope
more than ever resembled an uneasy ghost. He muttered an indistinct
response to a period directed at him by Woolfolk and turned with a
low, urgent appeal to his daughter. The latter, with a hopeless
gesture, relinquished his arm, and the other vanished.

"You were sailing this morning," Millie commented listlessly.

"I had gone," he said without explanation. Then he added: "But I came
back."

A silence threatened them which he resolutely broke: "Do you remember,
when you told me about your father, that you wanted really to talk
about yourself? Will you do that now?"

"Tonight I haven't the courage."

"I am not idly curious," he persisted.

"Just what are you?"

"I don't know," he admitted frankly. "At the present moment I'm lost,
fogged. But, meanwhile, I'd like to give you any assistance in my
power. You seem, in a mysterious way, needful of help."

She turned her head sharply in the direction of the open hall and said
in a high, clear voice, that yet rang strangely false: "I am quite
well cared for by my father and Nicholas." She moved closer to him,
dragging her chair across the uneven porch, in the rasp of which she
added, quick and low:

"Don't--please."

A mounting exasperation seized him at the secrecy that veiled her, hid
her from him, and he answered stiffly: "I am merely intrusive."

She was seated above him, and she leaned forward and swiftly pressed
his fingers, loosely clasped about a knee. Her hand was as cold as
salt. His irritation vanished before a welling pity. He got now a
sharp, recognized happiness from her nearness; his feeling for her
increased with the ac