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“I have a feeling that your Nancy might, if she knew this, dream with me of a new race, rising to the level of the needs of a new world. She might see herself as the mother of such a race–sheltered in my hidden land, sailing the seas with me, held close to my heart. I think I am a masterful man, but I should be masterful only to keep her to her best. If she faltered I should strengthen her. And I should make her happy. I know that I could make her happy. And for me there will never be another.

“I am leaving it to you to decide whether you will show her this. I want her to see it, because it seems to me that she has a right to decide between the life that I can offer her and the life she must live if she marries Anthony Peak. But it all involves a point of honor which I feel that I am not unprejudiced enough to decide. So to-morrow I shall go away. I shall sail far in the two months that I shall give myself before I come back. And when I come, you will let me know whether I am to turn once more to the trackless seas, or stay to find my happiness.”

This letter when I had first read it had stirred me profoundly, as I think it must have stirred any man or woman who has yearned amid the complexities of modern existence to find some land of dreams. Even to my island, comparatively untouched by the problems of existence in crowded centers, come the echoes of discord, of social unrest, of political upheavals, of commercial greed. In this hidden land of Olaf’s would be life stripped of its sordidness, love free from the blight of cynicism and disillusion–faith, firm in its nearness to God and the wonder of His works. I envied Olaf his hidden land as I envied Nancy her opportunity. My blood is the same as Nancy’s, and I love the sea. And as we grow older our souls adventure!

When Nancy came in to me, she had put on her white peignoir, and she had Olaf’s letter in her hand.

“Ducky,” she said, and her voice shook, “I have read it twice–and–I shouldn’t dare to think he was in earnest.”

“Why not?”

“I should want to go, Elizabeth.”

“And leave the world behind you?”

“Oh, I haven’t any world. It might be different if mother were alive, or daddy. There’d be only you, Ducky, my dear, dear Ducky.” She caught my hand and held it.

“And Anthony–“

“Anthony would get over it”–sharply. “Wouldn’t he, Elizabeth? You know he would.”

“My dear, I don’t know.”

“But I know. If I hadn’t been in his life, Mimi Sears would have been, just as Bob Needham would have been in my life if it hadn’t been for Anthony. There isn’t any question between Anthony and me of–one woman for one man. You know that, Elizabeth. But with Olaf–if he doesn’t have me, there will be no one else–ever. He–he will go sailing on–alone–“

“My dear, how do you know?”

She flung herself down beside me, a white rose, all fragrance. “I don’t know”–she began to cry. “How silly I am,” she sobbed against my shoulder. “I–I don’t know anything about him, do I, Elizabeth–? But it would be wonderful to be loved–like that.”

All through the night she slept on my arm, with her hand curled in the hollow of my neck as she had slept as a child. But I did not sleep. My mind leaped forward into the future, and I saw my world without her.

* * * * *

Nancy stayed with me through September. Anthony’s holiday was up the day after the garden party, and he went back to Boston, keeping touch with Nancy in the modern way by wire, special delivery, and long-distance telephone.