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Not a word was spoken. They had been sitting thus for more than an hour, and there was about their attitude a suggestion that silence was habitual. Once or twice the man rose and walked up and down the narrow room, or gazed absently from the windows of the pilot-house, but never by look or sign betrayed the slightest consciousness of his companion. At such times the Princess from her nest by the fire followed him with eyes of canine expectancy and wistfulness. But he would as inevitably return to his contemplation of the fire, and the Princess to her blinking watchfulness of his face.

They had sat there silent and undisturbed for many an evening in fair weather and foul. They had spent many a day in sunshine and storm, gathering the unclaimed spoil of sea and shore. They had kept these mute relations, varied only by the incidents of the hunt or meagre household duties, for three years, ever since the man, wandering moodily over the lonely sands, had fallen upon the half-starved woman lying in the little hollow where she had crawled to die. It had seemed as if they would never be disturbed, until now, when the Princess started, and, with the instinct of her race, bent her ear to the ground.

The wind had risen and was rattling the tarred canvas. But in another moment there plainly came from without the hut the sound of voices. Then followed a rap at the door; then another rap; and then, before they could rise to their feet, the door was flung briskly open.

“I beg your pardon,” said a pleasant but somewhat decided contralto voice, “but I don’t think you heard me knock. Ah, I see you did not. May I come in?”

There was no reply. Had the battered figurehead of the Goddess of Liberty, which lay deeply embedded in the sand on the beach, suddenly appeared at the door demanding admittance, the occupants of the cabin could not have been more speechlessly and hopelessly astonished than at the form which stood in the open doorway.

It was that of a slim, shapely, elegantly dressed young woman. A scarlet-lined silken hood was half thrown back from the shining mass of the black hair that covered her small head; from her pretty shoulders dropped a fur cloak, only restrained by a cord and tassel in her small gloved hand. Around her full throat was a double necklace of large white beads, that by some cunning feminine trick relieved with its infantile suggestion the strong decision of her lower face.

“Did you say yes? Ah, thank you. We may come in, Barker.” (Here a shadow in a blue army overcoat followed her into the cabin, touched its cap respectfully, and then stood silent and erect against the wall.) “Don’t disturb yourself in the least, I beg. What a distressingly unpleasant night! Is this your usual climate?”

Half graciously, half absently overlooking the still embarrassed silence of the group, she went on: “We started from the fort over three hours ago,–three hours ago, wasn’t it, Barker?” (the erect Barker touched his cap,)–“to go to Captain Emmons’s quarters on Indian Island,–I think you call it Indian Island, don’t you?” (she was appealing to the awe-stricken Princess,)–“and we got into the fog and lost our way; that is, Barker lost his way,” (Barker touched his cap deprecatingly,) “and goodness knows where we didn’t wander to until we mistook your light for the lighthouse and pulled up here. No, no, pray keep your seat, do! Really I must insist.”

Nothing could exceed the languid grace of the latter part of this speech,–nothing except the easy unconsciousness with which she glided by the offered chair of her stammering, embarrassed host and stood beside the open hearth.

“Barker will tell you,” she continued, warming her feet by the fire, “that I am Miss Portfire, daughter of Major Portfire, commanding the post. Ah, excuse me, child!” (She had accidentally trodden upon the bare yellow toes of the Princess.) “Really, I did not know you were there. I am very near-sighted.” (In confirmation of her statement, she put to her eyes a dainty double eyeglass that dangled from her neck.) “It’s a shocking thing to be near-sighted, isn’t it?”