aptain said. "I'll stay here, but perhaps
you folks had better run in."

Miss Matthews protested. "I've lived too long on this coast to mind a
storm. I'll wrap up in my rubber coat and let it rain. But we'd better
get that child in somewhere; she's scared of storms."

"Are you?" Justin asked Bettina.

"If there's going to be wind," she said, "I'm awfully afraid."

"Then we'll run for it," he told her; "up the hill to the house."

As he helped her climb the rocks, they took a last glance back at the
stolid pair who didn't mind storms. Captain Stubbs in brilliantly yellow
new oilskins and Miss Matthews in a sad-colored waterproof coat sat side
by side with their backs against the beached boat.

"Perhaps we should have stayed with them," said Bettina, doubtfully, as
Justin drew her up to his level.

But Justin had no doubts. Ahead of them was the dimness of the hemlock
forest; the solitude of the storm. He coveted the brief moments when
they might be alone together.

"Come," he urged, and they entered upon the darkness of the wood.

As they sped along over the cushioned earth, Justin helped her strongly,
half lifting her at times over the rough places.

"Are you afraid?" he asked her, and she shook her head.

With a roar and a rush the storm was upon them. For a few moments they
were in the midst of chaos. The air was full of flying things, and the
branches crashed and fell.

To Bettina, emotionally tense, the real world had disappeared. She was a
disembodied spirit, floating through infinite space with another spirit
as joyous, as exalted, as triumphant as her own.

When he asked her again, "Are you afraid?" and she again shook her head,
it came to her, suddenly, that she was not afraid because she was with
him. She felt no wonder that it was so. In this wild world there was no
place for wonder. She and Justin were laughing madly as they raced. Her
hair, loosed by the wind, streamed out behind her. Once it caught on a
button of Justin's coat, and held her so close to him that, when he
unwound it, she felt the quickened beating of his heart.

As they again sped on, she felt as if never before had she been alive in
such a radiant wonderful sense.

"Are you afraid?" he asked for the third time, bending down to catch her
answer.

"It's glorious," she panted. Then as the rain came, he shielded her with
his arm, and shouted:

"We'll have to make a dash through the open; here's the house ahead!"

The great