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“Ef that don’t beat all!” he ejaculated. “I wonder if Si is in his right senses? He’s been actin’ quar right along, and now to start off, Lord knows whar, at this hour o’ night! I really don’t believe it’s safe to stay here alone with him.”

Snuffy shook his unkempt head dubiously.

Young Si rowed steadily out over the dark waves. An eastern breeze was bringing in a damp sea fog that blurred darkly over the outlines of horizon and shore. The young fisherman found himself alone in a world of water and grey mist. He stopped rowing and leaned forward on his oars.

“To see her here, of all places!” he muttered. “Not a word, scarcely a look, after all this long heartbreak! Well, perhaps it is better so. And yet to know she is so near! How beautiful she is! And I love her more than ever. That is where the sting lies. I thought that in this rough life, amid all these rude associations, where nothing could remind me of her, I might forget. And now–“

He clenched his hands. The mist was all around and about him, creeping, impalpable, phantom-like. The dory rocked gently on the swell. From afar came the low persistent murmur of the ocean.

* * * * *

The next day Ethel Lennox declined to visit Si’s shore. Instead she went to the Point and sketched all day. She went again the next day and the next. The Point was the most picturesque part of the shore, she averred, and the “types” among its inhabitants most interesting. Agnes Bentley ceased to suggest another visit to Si’s shore. She had a vague perception that her companion did not care to discuss the subject.

At the end of a week Mrs. Bentley remarked: “What in the world can have happened to Young Si? It’s a whole week since he was here for milk or butter. He ain’t sick, is he?”

Mr. Bentley chuckled amusedly.

“I ‘low I can tell you the reason of that. Si’s getting his stuff at Walden’s now. I saw him going there twice this week. ‘Liza Walden’s got ahead of you at last, Mary.”

“Well, I never did!” said Mrs. Bentley. “Well, Young Si is the first that ever preferred ‘Liza Walden’s butter to mine. Everyone knows what hers is like. She never works her salt half in. Well, Young Si’s welcome to it, I’m sure; I wish him joy of his exchange.”

Mrs. Bentley rattled her dishes ominously. It was plain her faith in Young Si had received a severe shock.

Upstairs in her room, Ethel Lennox, with a few undried tears glistening on her cheeks, was writing a letter. Her lips were compressed and her hand trembled:

“I have discovered that it is no use to run away from fate,” she wrote. “No matter how hard we try to elude it, and how sure we are that we have succeeded, it will rise and meet us where we least expect it. I came down here tired and worn out, looking for peace and rest–and lo! the most disquieting element of my life is here to confront me.

“I’m going to confess, Helen. ‘Open confession is good for the soul,’ you know, and I shall treat myself to a good dose while the mood is on.

“You know, of course, that I was once engaged to Miles Lesley. You also know that that engagement was broken last autumn for unexplained reasons. Well, I will tell you all about it and then mail this letter speedily, before I change my mind.

“It is over a year now since Miles and I first became engaged. As you are aware, his family is wealthy, and noted for its exclusiveness. I was a poor school teacher, and you may imagine with what horror his relatives received the news of Miles’s attentions to one whom they considered his inferior. Now that I have thought the whole matter over calmly, I scarcely blame them. It must be hard for aristocratic parents who have lavished every care upon a son, and cherished for him the highest hopes, when he turns from the women of his own order to one considered beneath him in station. But I did not view the subject in this light then; and instead of declining his attentions, as I perhaps should have done, I encouraged them–I loved him so dearly, Nell!–and in spite of family opposition, Miles soon openly declared his attachment.