terestedly, turning her fathomless eyes upon him;
"are you getting tired of us here, and wanting to go back to the city?"

"No, little girl," he replied, assuming his usual big-brother's tone and
address, "I hate the city, as I've told you many times; but business
matters vex me, and as you may have heard, I've had to lay off some of
my men."

"Yes, I have heard," she answered quietly, her eyes still on him,
"nothing happens here that all do not know in a few hours."

And Winn, with the burden of dread that like a pall oppressed him just
then, wondered how long it would take for all to hear what he or Jess
could utter in five words.

"Why did you come here, Mona, if you were lonesome?" he said, anxious to
change the subject. "It's the last spot on the island you should visit
if lonely."

Mona colored slightly; "I always go to some lonely spot when I feel
sad," she said, unwilling to admit the real reason for her coming here.

"And that is where you are wrong," put in Winn, forcing a laugh and
seating himself beside her. "When I am blue I go to Jess or else take a
tramp as I did to-day," he added hastily.

Mona still watched him furtively and with an intuitive feeling that he
was concealing something. "I wish I knew how to play the violin," he
continued, looking across the harbor to where a dory had just started
toward the village, "it must be, as your uncle says, 'a heap o' comfort'
when one is lonesome."

"It has been to him all his life long," she answered a little sadly,
"and is now."

"And to you as well," he interposed, "it has helped you pass many a long
hour, I fancy. Do you know," he continued, anxious to talk about
anything except his present mood, "I've thought so many times of that
day I first heard you playing in the 'Devil's Oven,' and what a strange
place it was to hide yourself in. You are a queer girl, Mona, and unlike
any one I ever knew. I wish I were an artist, I'd like to make a picture
of you in that cave."

Mona looked pleased.

"You would make a picture," he added, smiling at her, "that the whole
world would look at with interest; I'd have you holding your violin and
looking out over the wide ocean with those sphinx-like eyes of yours,
just as if the world and all its follies had no interest for you."

"And what is a sphinx?" asked Mona.

"A woman that no man understands," he answered carelessly. "There are a
few such, and they are the only ones who interest men any length of
time