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“They’ve sprung a leak. Here, Curtis, launch the boat. We’ve got to go out or Ev will drown them.”

They shot out from the shore just as the downpour came, blotting out sea and land in one driving sheet of white rain.

“Young Si is coming off for us,” said Agnes. “We’ll be all right if he gets here in time. This boat is going to sink, sure.”

Little Ev was completely demoralized by fear. The girls bailed unceasingly, but the water gained every minute. Young Si was none too soon.

“Jump, Ev!” he shouted as his boat shot alongside. “Jump for your life!”

He dragged Ethel Lennox in as he spoke. Agnes sprang from one boat to the other like a cat, and Little Ev jumped just as a thunderous crash seemed to burst above them and air and sky were filled with blue flame.

The danger was past, for the squall had few difficulties for Si and Snuffy. When they reached the shore, Agnes, who had quite recovered from her fright, tucked her dripping skirts about her and announced her determination to go straight home with Snuffy.

“I can’t get any wetter than I am,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll send Pa down in the buggy for Miss Lennox. Light the fire in your shanty, Si, and let her get dry. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

Si picked Ethel up in his strong arms and carried her into the fish-house. He placed her on one of the low benches and hurriedly began to kindle a fire. Ethel sat up dazedly and pushed back the dripping masses of her bright hair. Young Si turned and looked down at her with a passionate light in his eyes. She put out her cold, wet hands wistfully.

“Oh, Miles!” she whispered.

Outside, the wind shook the frail building and tore the shuddering sea to pieces. The rain poured down. It was already settling in for a night of storm. But, inside, Young Si’s fire was casting cheery flames over the rude room, and Young Si himself was kneeling by Ethel Lennox with his arm about her and her head on his broad shoulder. There were happy tears in her eyes and her voice quivered as she said, “Miles, can you forgive me? If you knew how bitterly I have repented–“

“Never speak of the past again, my sweet. In my lonely days and nights down here by the sea, I have forgotten all but my love.”

“Miles, how did you come here? I thought you were in Europe.”

“I did travel at first. I came down here by chance, and resolved to cut myself utterly adrift from my old life and see if I could not forget you. I was not very successful.” He smiled down into her eyes. “And you were going away tomorrow. How perilously near we have been to not meeting! But how are we going to explain all this to our friends along shore?”

“I think we had better not explain it at all. I will go away tomorrow, as I intended, and you can quietly follow soon. Let ‘Young Si’ remain the mystery he has always been.”

“That will be best–decidedly so. They would never understand if we did tell them. And I daresay they would be very much disappointed to find I was not a murderer or a forger or something of that sort. They have always credited me with an evil past. And you and I will go back to our own world, Ethel. You will be welcome there now, sweet–my family, too, have learned a lesson, and will do anything to promote my happiness.”

Agnes drove Ethel Lennox to the station next day. The fierce wind that had swept over land and sea seemed to have blown away all the hazy vapours and oppressive heats in the air, and the morning dawned as clear and fresh as if the sad old earth with all her passionate tears had cleansed herself from sin and stain and come forth radiantly pure and sweet. Ethel bubbled over with joyousness. Agnes wondered at the change in her.

“Good-bye, Miss Lennox,” she said wistfully. “You’ll come back to see us some time again, won’t you?”

“Perhaps,” smiled Ethel, “and if not, Agnes, you must come and see me. Some day I may tell you a secret.”

About a week later Young Si suddenly vanished, and his disappearance was a nine-day’s talk along shore. His departure was as mysterious as his advent. It leaked out that he had quietly disposed of his boat and shanty to Snuffy Curtis, sent his mackerel off and, that done, slipped from the Pointers’ lives, never more to re-enter them.

Little Ev was the last of the Pointers to see him tramping along the road to the station in the dusk of the autumn twilight. And the next morning Agnes Bentley, going out of doors before the others, found on the doorstep a basket containing a small, vociferous black kitten with a card attached to its neck. On it was written: “Will Agnes please befriend Witch in memory of Young Si?”