medium that would smother it. And just beyond the edge of the hard
sand, following the long curves of the wash, lay a dark, narrow line
of bark fragments.

The air was very clear and crystalline. The light-houses on the
ends of the twin piers, though some miles distant, seemed close at
hand. White herring gulls, cruising against the blue, flashed white
as the sails of a distant ship. A fresh breeze darkened the blue
velvet surface of the water, tumbled the white foam hissing up the
beach, blew forward over the dunes a fine hurrying mist of sand, and
bore to Orde at last the refreshment of the wide spaces. A woman,
walking slowly, bent her head against the force of this wind.

Orde watched her idly. She held to the better footing of the smooth
sand, which made it necessary that she retreat often before the
inrushing wash, sometimes rather hastily. Orde caught himself
admiring the grace of her deft and sudden movements, and the sway of
her willowy figure. Every few moments she turned and faced the
lake, her head thrown back, the wind whipping her garments about
her.

As she drew nearer, Orde tried in vain to catch sight of her face.
She looked down, watching the waters advance and recede; she wore a
brimmed hat bent around her head by means of some sort of veil tied
over the top and beneath her chin. When she had arrived nearly
opposite Orde she turned abruptly inland, and a moment later began
laboriously to climb the steep sand.

The process seemed to amuse her. She turned her head sidewise to
watch with interest the hurrying, tumbling little cascades that slid