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“For another two weeks only–“

“Mr. Sangree leaves in a fortnight,” I said, seeing at once what she was driving at, but wondering if it was best to encourage her or not.

“If I knew you were to be on the island till then,” she said, her face alternately pale and blushing, and her voice trembling a little, “I should feel so much happier.”

I looked at her steadily, waiting for her to finish.

“And safer,” she added almost in a whisper; “especially–at night, I mean.”

“Safer, Joan?” I repeated, thinking I had never seen her eyes so soft and tender. She nodded her head, keeping her gaze fixed on my face.

It was really difficult to refuse, whatever my thoughts and judgment may have been, and somehow I understood that she spoke with good reason, though for the life of me I could not have put it into words.

“Happier–and safer,” she said gravely, the canoe giving a dangerous lurch as she leaned forward in her seat to catch my answer. Perhaps, after all, the wisest way was to grant her request and make light of it, easing her anxiety without too much encouraging its cause.

“All right, Joan, you queer creature; I promise,” and the instant look of relief in her face, and the smile that came back like sunlight to her eyes, made me feel that, unknown to myself and the world, I was capable of considerable sacrifice after all.

“But, you know, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” I added sharply; and she looked up in my face with the smile women use when they know we are talking idly, yet do not wish to tell us so.

“You don’t feel afraid, I know,” she observed quietly.

“Of course not; why should I?”

“So, if you will just humour me this once I–I will never ask anything foolish of you again as long as I live,” she said gratefully.

“You have my promise,” was all I could find to say.

She headed the nose of the canoe for the lagoon lying a quarter of a mile ahead, and paddled swiftly; but a minute or two later she paused again and stared hard at me with the dripping paddle across the thwarts.

“You’ve not heard anything at night yourself, have you?” she asked.

“I never hear anything at night,” I replied shortly, “from the moment I lie down till the moment I get up.”

“That dismal howling, for instance,” she went on, determined to get it out, “far away at first and then getting closer, and stopping just outside the Camp?”

“Certainly not.”

“Because, sometimes I think I almost dreamed it.”

“Most likely you did,” was my unsympathetic response.

“And you don’t think father has heard it either, then?”

“No. He would have told me if he had.”

This seemed to relieve her mind a little. “I know mother hasn’t,” she added, as if speaking to herself, “for she hears nothing–ever.”

* * * * *

It was two nights after this conversation that I woke out of deep sleep and heard sounds of screaming. The voice was really horrible, breaking the peace and silence with its shrill clamour. In less than ten seconds I was half dressed and out of my tent. The screaming had stopped abruptly, but I knew the general direction, and ran as fast as the darkness would allow over to the women’s quarters, and on getting close I heard sounds of suppressed weeping. It was Joan’s voice. And just as I came up I saw Mrs. Maloney, marvellously attired, fumbling with a lantern. Other voices became audible in the same moment behind me, and Timothy Maloney arrived, breathless, less than half dressed, and carrying another lantern that had gone out on the way from being banged against a tree. Dawn was just breaking, and a chill wind blew in from the sea. Heavy black clouds drove low overhead.