ome between them
was due to his own seeking. He had praised her playing, passed hours in
delightful exchange of poetic thoughts and recital of old-time lore,
pathetic, romantic, and altogether alluring, and this thrusting his
personality, as it were, into the thoughts and life of this untutored
island girl could have but one ending, and full well Winn knew what that
was.

The next Sunday chance threw them together, for Winn, to escape his
mood, if possible, had taken a long stroll over the island and up to the
north village. Returning late in the afternoon, he found her sitting by
the old mill watching the tide slowly ebbing between its mussel-coated
foundations. It was a spot romantic in its isolation, out of sight from
any dwelling and, in addition, of somewhat ghostly interest. Winn had
heard its history. It had been built a century ago and made useful for
the island's needs, but finally it fell into disuse and decay, its roof
gone, its timbers and floor removed, its windows but gaping openings in
the stone walls and akin to the eyeless sockets and mouth of a skull.
Then, too, the half-demented girl who years before had been found
hanging lifeless from one of its cross beams added an uncanny touch.
Winn had felt its grewsome interest and once or twice had visited it
with Mona. And now, coming to it just as the lowering sun had reached
the line of spruce trees fringing the western side of the harbor, he
found Mona sitting where they had sat one moonlight evening, idly
watching the motionless harbor stretching a mile away. She was not
aware of his approach, but sat leaning against an abutting stone,
looking at the setting sun's red glow on the harbor, a lonely, pathetic
figure.

For a moment Winn watched her, and watching there beside this uncanny
old ruin, lived the past two months over again like a momentary dream,
and then drew nearer.

"Why, Mona," he said, "what are you doing here?"

"Nothing," she answered, straightening up and turning to face him, "only
I did not know what else to do, and so came here." She did not disclose
the impulse which brought her to this spot, for of that no man,
certainly not Winn, should be told.

"Well," he continued, with assumed cheerfulness, "I'm glad to have come
across you, for I too have been lonesome and trying to walk it off. I've
had the blues for a week or more now," he added, feeling that some sort
of apology was due her, "and am not myself."

"And why?" she asked in