e is a camp belonging to a
man whom Major Brent and I do not wish to have her meet."

The grimy engineer hauled out the packet which, when put together, was
warranted to become a full-fledged canoe.

"Lord! how she'll hate us all, even poor Johnson," murmured Darrow. "I
don't know much about Kathleen Haltren, but if she doesn't paddle south
I'll eat cotton-waste with oil-dressing for dinner!"

At that moment the major reappeared, toddling excitedly towards the
stern.

"What on earth is the trouble?" asked Darrow. "Is there a pizen sarpint
aboard?"

"Trouble!" stammered the major. "Who said there was any trouble? Don't
be an ass, sir! Don't even look like an ass, sir! Damnation!"

And he trotted furiously into the engine-room.

Darrow climbed to the wheel-house once more, fished out a pair of
binoculars, and fixed them on the inlet and the strip of Atlantic
beyond.

"If the _Dione_ isn't in by three o'clock, Haltren will have his
chance," he murmured.

He was still inspecting the ocean and his watch alternately when Mrs.
Haltren came on deck.

"Did you send me the canoe?" she asked, with cool unconcern.

"It's for anybody," he said, morosely. "Somebody ought to take a
snap-shot of the scene of our disaster. If you don't want the canoe,
I'll take it."

She had her camera in her hand; it was possible he had noticed it,
although he appeared to be very busy with his binoculars.

He was also rude enough to turn his back. She hesitated, looked up the
lagoon and down the lagoon. She could only see half a mile south,
because Flyover Point blocked the view.

"If Mrs. Castle is nervous you will be near the cabin?" she asked,
coldly.

"I'll be here," he said.

"And you may say to Major Brent," she added, "that he need not send me
further orders by his engineer, and that I shall paddle wherever caprice
invites me."

A few moments later a portable canoe glided out from under the stern of
the launch. In it, lazily wielding the polished paddle, sat young Mrs.
Haltren, bareheaded, barearmed, singing as sweetly as the little
cardinal, who paused in sheer surprise at the loveliness of song and
singer. Like a homing pigeon the canoe circled to take its bearings
once, then glided away due _south_.

Blue was the sky and water; her eyes were bluer; white as the sands her
bare arms glimmered. Was it a sunbeam caught entangled in her burnished
hair, or a stray strand, that burned far on the water.

Darrow dropped his