“Why, this is the way it was--see if it doesn’t make you tired! Everybody was talking about it. You remember that time last month when you came so near your end, going in with her the night of the dance, she never made a sound. And last week, when she lost a little trifling bracelet in swimming--gee! she burst out crying right there on the pier before everybody!” A wild thought flitted into Stephen’s mind. “What kind of a bracelet was it?” he inquired, with elaborate indifference. “Nothing very much, to make a girl cry like that--a girl like Elfie, too, the cold, superior, athletic kind. But, then, she’d been acting queer for some time, didn’t you notice? No, it was since you went away--nervous and quiet, and ready to snap your head off if you spoke to her, always sitting down there on the breakwater, reading--Elfie reading! Just fancy that! Gee! I never saw a girl change so quick before.” Stephen went on with his supper. “Well, did she find her bracelet?” he inquired, carelessly. “After the harbor was turned inside out--that’s the excitement, you see. The whole town was out every day. Then she offered a reward--fifty dollars; then a hundred. She wanted to send to Portland for divers. But an old native chap found it at low tide--old Ben, you know, that is always fishing there on the dock. So she paid him, on the nail--a hundred plunks. And her mother said she couldn’t have any autumn clothes, and she said she didn’t care one scrap.” Stephen lit a cigarette with elaborate pains. “So, I suppose,” he observed, tentatively, “that it was quite an elaborate bit of jewelry.” “That’s the joke. A hundred dollars would have bought a dozen like it--just clam pearls and silver. Say, it’s a peachy evening. Let’s go and look up some of the crowd, and have a marshmallow toast on the beach.” Glyn rose. “I’m sorry, Martin, I have to go down and help my skipper ashore with our catch. See you later--business, you see.” “Three cheers for the bold fisherman!” grinned Martin, as Stephen rushed from the hall with an eagerness which did credit to his sense of duty toward Jabez. Twilight was drawing down, damp and dusky, over rocks and harbor, as Stephen hurried down to the breakwater. With swift precaution, he stepped along over the loose stones--no one was there. He looked about in desperate search. Then, in a little rocky nook at the extreme point, he caught the glint of a familiar yellow head. “Elfie!” he called, softly, as he hastened toward her. Her white form rose up; she stood there looking at him, her book still in her hand--looking at him silently. As he joined her she laughed, a little, nervous laugh. “Oh, Mr. Glyn, is that you?” she said. “And have you come to tell me about your cruise?” For a moment Stephen stood at a loss. Here before those clear cool eyes, what Martin had told him seemed so absurd, so impossible. His eyes fell upon the book in her hand. Suddenly, as he read the title in the fading light, his heart beat again high and quick.