But she made no answer. She did not move from the place where I had set her down. There was a strange look on her face, which I could not fathom; but I carried it with me, treasured and uncomprehended, as the boat slipped rapidly down the tide. As long as I could discern the wharf at all I could see that white form moveless at its edge. I forgot my errand. I forgot her cruel distrust. I strained my gaze upon her, and knew nothing save that I loved her. Chapter XVII Memory is a Child When I could no longer discern even the shore whence we had started, I in a measure came to myself. Nicole—sagacious Nicole—had left me to my dream. He had got up the mainsail and jib unaided, and now sat like a statue at the tiller. We were in the open basin, running with a steady wind abeam. There was quite a swell on, and the waves looked sinister, cruel as steel, under the bare white moon. A fading glow still marked the spot where the De Lamourie house had stood; but save for that there was no hint of man’s hand in all the wild, empty, hissing, wonderful open. Far to the left lay Blomidon, a crouching lion; and straight ahead a low, square bluff guarded the mouth of the Piziquid. I saw that we were nearing it rapidly, for Nicole’s boat had legs. Once in the Piziquid mouth, we should have a hard run up against the ebb; but the wind would then be right aft, and I felt that we could stem the current and make our landing in time. “Will this wind carry her against the Piziquid tide?” I asked Nicole. It was the first word spoken in perhaps an hour, and my voice sounded strange to me. “We’ll catch the first of the flood soon after we get inside, Master Paul,” said he, in the most matter-of-fact voice in the world. Content with this, and knowing that for the time there was nothing to do but wait, I lapsed back into my reverie. I felt exhausted, not from bodily effort, but from emotion. My nerves and brain felt sleepy; yet nothing was further from my eyes than sleep. Situations and deeds, mental and physical crises, agonies and ecstasies and dull despair, had so trodden upon one another’s heels that I was breathless. I caught at my brain, as it were, to make it keep still long enough to think. Yet I could not think to any purpose. I was aware of nothing so keenly as the sensation that had intoxicated me as I held Yvonne’s unconsenting body for those few moments in my arms, while removing her from the boat. To have touched her at all against her will seemed a sacrilege; but when a sacrilege has seemed a plain necessity I have never been the one to balk at it. Now I found myself looking with a foolish affection at the arms which had been guilty of that sacrilege—and straightway, coming to my wits again, I glanced at Nicole to see if he had divined the vast dimensions of my folly.