imly the Northumberland,
smoking against the wild background of fog; her uncle's face, Boston--a
vague and dark picture beyond a storm--and nearer, the tragic form on
the reef that still haunted terribly her dreams. But she never spoke of
these things to Dick. Just as she kept the secret of what was in her
box, and the secret of her trouble whenever she lost it, she kept the
secret of her feelings about these things.

Born of these things there remained with her always a vague terror: the
terror of losing Dick. Mrs Stannard, her uncle, the dim people she had
known in Boston, all had passed away out of her life like a dream and
shadows. The other one too, most horribly. What if Dick were taken
from her as well?

This haunting trouble had been with her a long time; up to a few months
ago it had been mainly personal and selfish--the dread of being left
alone. But lately it had altered and become more acute. Dick had
changed in her eyes, and the fear was now for him. Her own personality
had suddenly and strangely become merged in his. The idea of life
without him was unthinkable, yet the trouble remained, a menace in the
blue.

Some days it would be worse than others. To-day, for instance, it was
worse than yesterday, as though some danger had crept close to them
during the night. Yet the sky and sea were stainless, the sun shone on
tree and flower, the west wind brought the tune of the far-away reef
like a lullaby. There was nothing to hint of danger or the need of
distrust.

At last Dick finished his spear and rose to his feet.

"Where are you going?" asked Emmeline.

"The reef," he replied. "The tide's going out."

"I'll go with you," said she.

He went into the house and stowed the precious knife away. Then he came
out, spear in one hand, and half a fathom of liana in the other. The
liana was for the purpose of stringing the fish on, should the catch be
large. He led the way down the grassy sward to the lagoon where the
dinghy lay, close up to the bank, and moored to a post driven into the
soft soil. Emmeline got in, and, taking the sculls, he pushed off. The
tide was going out.

I have said that the reef just here lay a great way out from the shore.
The lagoon was so shallow that at low tide one could have waded almost
right across it, were it not for pot-holes here and there--ten-feet
traps--and great beds of rotten coral, into which one would sink as
into brushwood, to say nothing of the nettle coral t