Part 22 (1/2)

”Then accept the consequences, and leave me alone”

”And if I can't----”

She looked him squarely in the eyes ”I ae,” he said, ”I ayou, on my knees, for what I threay

I----”

”You've broken my heart,” she said; ”why should I e,” he cried, ”in ten h; in an hour we can be outside the reef; in two, and this cursed island will sink forever behind us, and no one here will ever see us again or knohither we have gone Let us follow the gale, and push into new seas, a new people--Tahiti, Marquesas, the Pearl Islands--where we shall win back our lost happiness, and find our love only the stronger for e've suffered”

She pointed to the ard sky ”I think I know the port we'd o down to it in each other's arms”

For a moment she looked at hier Her hot hands reached for his, and he felt in her quick and tumultuous breath the first token of her surrender Herself a child of the sea, brought up fro boats and shi+ps, her hand as true on the tiller, her sparkling eyes as keen to watch the luff of a sail as any ory the hell that awaited them outside To accept so terrible an ordeal seemed like a purification of her dishonor If she died, she would die unstained; if she lived, it would be after such a bridal that would obliterate her tie to the sot below Then, on the eve of her giving way, as every line in her body showed her longing, as her head drooped as though to find a resting place on the breast of the man she loved, she suddenly called up all her resolution and tore herself free

”I'ain to plead with her; but in hisstark and bloody on the cabin floor

”You gaveI will not betray o with him But the moment of her madness had passed She listened unmoved, and when at last he stopped in despair, she bade hio

He sat down on the rail instead, his eyes defying her

She stepped aft, and his heart stood still as she see the co aside the gaskets, she stripped the sail covers off the an, with practiced hands, to reef down to the third reef Then she went forward and did the sa why or how, except that he was helping Madge, Gregory, like awith her on the halyards of both sails The wind thundered in them as they rose; the main boom jerked violently at the sheet and lashed to and fro the width of the deck; the anchor chain fretted and sawed in the hawse hole; the whole schooner strained and creaked and shook to the keelson Gregory, in a to sea, Greg,” she said

”Alone?” he cried ”Alone?”

”Joe and I,” she said

It was on his tongue to tell her Joe was dead; but, though he tried, he could not do so It wasn't in flesh and blood to tell her he had killed her husband He could only look at her helplessly, and say over and over again, ”To sea!”

”Greg,” she said, ”I mean to leave you while I am brave--while I am yet able to resist--while I can still remember I am Joe's wife!”

”And drown,” he said

”What do I care if I do?” she returned ”What do I care for anything?”

”If it's to be one or the other,” he said, ”I'll goschooner I'd have twice the chance you'd have”

She put her arms round his neck and kissed him ”You sweet traitor,” she said, ”you'd play me false!”

He protested vehemently that he would not deceive her