e, and hear only the sound of the great water below."

"You will go back," said Keith.

He had begun to pity her lately, for her longing was deeper than he had
supposed. It had its roots in her very being. He had studied her and
found it so.

"She will die of pure homesickness if she stays here much longer," he
said to Carrington. "What do you think of our writing down to that old
convent and offering--of course unknown to her--to pay the little she
costs them, if they will take her back?"

"All right," said Carrington. "Go ahead."

He was making a larger sail for his paroquet boat. "If none of you will
go out in her, I might as well have all the sport I can," he said.

"Sport to consist in being swamped?" Keith asked.

"By no means, croaker. Sport to consist in shooting over the water like
a rocket; I sitting on the tilted edge, watching the waves, the winds,
and the clouds, and hearing the water sing as we rush along."

Keith took counsel with no one else, not even with Melvyna, but
presently he wrote his letter and carried it himself over to the village
to mail. He did good deeds like that once in a while, "to help
humanity," he said. They were tangible always; like the primary rocks.

At length one evening the fog rolled out to sea for good and all, at
least as far as that shore was concerned. In the morning there stood the
lighthouse, and the island, and the reef, just the same as ever. They
had almost expected to see them altered, melted a little.

"Let us go over to the reef, all of us, and spend the day," said Keith.
"It will do us good to breathe the clear air, and feel the brilliant,
dry, hot sunshine again."

"Hear the man!" said Melvyna laughing. "After trying to persuade us all
those days that he liked that sticky fog too!"

"Mme. Gonsalvez, we like a lily; but is that any reason why we may not
also like a rose?"

"Neither of 'em grows on this beach as I'm aware of," answered Melvyna
dryly.

Then Carrington put in his voice, and carried the day. Women never
resisted Carrington long, but yielded almost unconsciously to the
influence of his height and his strength, and his strong, hearty will. A
subtiler influence over them, however, would have waked resistance, and
Carrington himself would have been conquered far sooner (and was
conquered later) by one who remained unswayed by those influences, to
which others paid involuntary obeisance.

Pedro had gone to the village for his supplies and h