“For shame!” she cried. “Like a pair of wild savages! I’m ashamed of you both!” From under the high arched brows, her eyes sent out a dangerous light. She turned but the one shaft at Tony. “You go!” He stood his ground, and retorted bitterly: “Oh, I see. There _is_ something between you.” “No!” She dropped the arm that she had clung to. And at the word or the movement, Miles understood, with a strange triumph, his late repulse from Alward’s Cove. “No, there’s nothing. But there’s one thing, Captain Florio. This man’s real, and I believe him clear through. And the way I believe you is just skin-deep, and the rest all hollow!” Tony made a little plausible gesture of submission, as foreign as it was graceful. “Short and sweet, that is,” he answered. “Not true, all the same. I’m honest my own way, if I don’t parade it like a God’s miracle. I meant all I said, Anna; it’s a pity you can’t take it so.” He turned away, a jaunty penitent, swung his wide shoulders edgewise into the gap, and disappeared among the firs. The whisking of the boughs died into silence; and next moment the girl’s courage had fallen slack. “Oh, what shall I do?” she whispered, as if alone. Her face she held averted; but Miles could see her head shaken like a daffodil on the stalk, and feel the hand tremble which had caught his arm again. “Where can I go? And it’s in the same house with me--They’re always there.” “Anna,” he ventured; and as her hand dropped suddenly, “Haven’t I as good a right to call you so? Come, we’re old friends. Tell us.” She would not turn. “It’s--oh, it’s nothing!” “If it should be anything?” he persisted. “If you--won’t you come tell me then?” She looked up and away in a flash; but he had caught the lustre of brimming eyes. “There’s nobody else I could--” “Oh!” he cried in a whirl. “To hear you say that--” Footsteps crossed the quarter-deck, and scuffed in the path behind them. “Hello! Ex-scuse me!” called a hearty though nasal voice. Like an aged Puck out of the bushes, Hab the teamster peered shiftily into their cover. The girl was away like a fawn. The teamster’s head remained as though he were imbedded in the evergreens. Wagging it, he broke into batrachian song:-- “A young man come a-seekin’ her, For to make her his dear, An’ he to his trade Was a ship’s carpenteer!” “Didn’t think it of ye, Mile,” he added mournfully, then winked. “Ella stated you was down here. But she don’t figger what was up, and bless ye, I’ll never give it away.” He looked behind him, called “Here he is, Mr. Furfey,” and entered the lane. A stranger followed him. “Here, Mile,” continued Habakkuk, with a flourish. “This feller’s the gentleman I drove all the ways down here to interduce, name of Furfey.”