upraised to him, felt their tender sympathy wondrously sweet.

"I went up there to think," he said, "and to be alone. It is a way I
have when business troubles me." And bidding her "good night" he left
her.

CHAPTER XVII

IN THE PATH OF MOONLIGHT

For a few weeks Winn worried over the suspicions of Weston & Hill's
honesty that seemed like a cloud of danger, and then, to a certain
extent, it passed away. To no one, not even Jess, did he dare confide
them, but just drifted on, day by day, doing the duty he was paid to do.
Each week came his pay-roll and salary remittance, and an assuring and
pleasant letter from the firm. It also contained a request or hope that
he would not forget to sell stock when he could. This latter, however,
made no impression on Winn. Collectively, he had sold about one thousand
shares to these islanders, and that he felt was enough. In fact,
believing, as he had almost come to do, that the entire scheme was a
gigantic swindle, it was certainly all he intended to sell, and more
than he wished he had sold. Then there was another matter of serious
interest, and that was Mona.

Between her and himself, these summer days, there had come a little bond
of feeling, deep-rooted in her simple but passionate nature, and more
lightly in his. To her it was a new wonder-world, and as each evening
when he chanced to linger by the gate watching her, as she cared for the
sweet williams, pinks, and peonies that grew in her dooryard, or later
when he sat with her in the vine-hid porch, chatting of commonplaces or
relating incidents of the great world outside, his earnest eyes, the
melodious tones of his voice, and the careless, half cynical, half
tender way he had of expressing himself, only increased the charm.
Occasionally, on Thursday evenings, when her mother, as usual, made one
of the little band who gathered in the church, they two would stroll
over to the cliff beyond Norse Hill or up the road to Northaven to the
old tide mill. On two occasions he had persuaded her to take her violin
and visit the gorge with him, where she played at his bidding, her heart
gladdened by the thought that he cared to hear her. But she preferred
his poetic fancies and world-taught sayings to the violin, and since she
was so charming and interested a listener, it was inevitable that he
talked much. Another matter also troubled him seriously.

He had, at the beginning of their acquaintance, and from a desire to
utt