and the beach, which was quite far enough, considering. She luffed
cleverly, having a splendid blowy time of it, and put about. This done,
she permitted herself to glance for the second time over the purview.
No cloud of smoke stood upon the horizon stationward, no human being
appeared within such view of the strand as the cottages and bath-houses
left to her. The train, evidently, was late. Well, as far as that went,
there was no special hurry about getting back to the hotel. Mamma could
only scold a little, as usual.
Carlisle smiled to herself, rather tickled by the thought of the
brilliant march she and mamma had stolen upon the world. In five
minutes, under stiff Mr. Payne's eye at that, she had indubitably
interested Mr. Canning. And now, thanks chiefly to Willie Kerr's loyal
enterprise, ...
Her returning eye fell upon a bobbing object in the water, very near
her, and her heart missed a beat. Her lips moved soundlessly. _Jack
Dalhousie!_...
The bobbing object, in fact, was the head of a man of the sea; a
youthful swimmer who had come up on her unseen--behind her till she had
put about. The lad was swimming rapidly, though with a curious waste of
motive power, and was so close that Miss Heth seemed to herself to be
staring full into his face. His course was laid dead across her bows;
for other reasons, too, his piratical intentions were instantly obvious
to the girl in the boat.
How did he dare!--after all these months ...
For an exciting second she plotted escape by flight, but the impulse was
all but still-born. He would be on her before she could put about. The
girl sat entirely still, regarding the swimmer in a kind of fascinated
silence. The irony of fate, indeed, that, at a moment when her whole
mind and heart were toward the rose-pink future, this scapegrace ghost
from her only "past" should have risen out of the sea upon her. To dream
of a Canning, and be entrapped by a Dalhousie!...
The youth sloshed alongside, laid hold of the boat's nose, and
methodically and with some difficulty pulled himself in. The weight of
|