FullReads

And again irrelevantly, “I was horribly intolerant once.”

“Once you asked me a question,” he said. “We separated because I refused to answer you.”

She closed her eyes and the color flooded her face.

“I shall never ask it again,” she said.

But he went on: “I refused to reply. I was an ass; I had theories, too. They’re gone, quite gone. I will answer you now, if you wish.”

Her face burned. “No! No, don’t–don’t answer me; don’t, I beg of you! I–I know now that even the gods–” She covered her face with her hands. The boat drifted rapidly on; it was flood-tide.

“Yes, even the gods,” he said. “There is the answer. Now you know.”

Overhead the sky grew pink; wedge after wedge of water-fowl swept through the calm evening air, and their aerial whimpering rush sounded faintly over the water.

“Kathleen!”

She made no movement.

Far away a dull shock set the air vibrating. The Dione was saluting her castaways. The swift Southern night, robed in rose and violet, already veiled the forest; and the darkling water deepened into purple.

“Jack!”

He rose and crept forward to the stern where she was sitting. Her hands hung idly; her head was bent.

Into the purple dusk they drifted, he at her feet, close against her knees. Once she laid her hands on his shoulders, peering at him with wet eyes.

And, with his lips pressed to her imprisoned hands, she slipped down into the boat beside him, crouching there, her face against his.

So, under the Southern stars, they drifted home together. The Dione fired guns and sent up rockets, which they neither heard nor saw; Major Brent toddled about the deck and his guests talked scandal; but what did they care!

Darrow, standing alone on the wrecked launch, stared at the stars and waited for the search-boat to return.

It was dawn when the truth broke upon Major Brent. It broke so suddenly that he fairly yelped as the Dione poked her white beak seaward.

It was dawn, too, when a pigeon-toed Seminole Indian stood upon the veranda of a house which was covered with blossoms of Pasque Florida.

Silently he stood, inspecting the closed door; then warily stooped and picked up something lying on the veranda at his feet. It was a gold comb.

“Heap squaw,” he said, deliberately. “Tiger will go.”

But he never did.