soon!"

Once, in the breaking terror of her heart, she had almost told him the
truth. Afterward she had thanked God for giving her the strength to keep
it back. It was day--for they spoke in terms of day and night--when
Rydal, half drunk, had dragged her into his cabin, and she had fought him
until her hair was down about her in tangled confusion--and she had told
Peter that it was the wind. After that, instead of evading him, she had
played Rydal with her wits, while praying to God for help. It was
impossible to tell Peter. He had aged steadily and terribly in the last
two weeks. His eyes were sunken into deep pits. His blond hair was
turning gray over the temples. His cheeks were hollowed, and there was a
different sort of luster in his eyes. He looked fifty instead of
thirty-five. Her heart bled in its agony. She loved Peter with a
wonderful love.

The truth! If she told him that! She could see Peter rising up out of his
bed like a ghost. It would kill him. If he could have seen Rydal--only an
hour before--stopping her out on the deck, taking her in his arms, and
kissing her until his drunken breath and his beard sickened her! And if
he could have heard what Rydal had said! She shuddered. And suddenly she
dropped down on her knees beside Wapi and took his great head in her
arms, unafraid of him--and glad that he had come.

Then she turned to Peter. "I'm going ashore to see Blake again--now," she
said. "Wapi will go with me, and I won't be afraid. I insist that I am
right, so please don't object any more, Peter dear."

She bent over and kissed him, and then in spite of his protest, put on
her fur coat and hood, and stood for a moment smiling down at him. The