Away, she felt sweetly secure of him. Sure his and her bond remained inviolate. Sure his affection never wavered or paled, but stood always at the flood, a constant quantity upon which she could draw at need; or--to change the metaphor--a steady foundation upon which her heart could safely build. He would not, could not, ever fail her. This had been sufficient to stay her longing for sight and speech of him, her longing for his bodily presence. But now, in face of the very concrete facts of the island, the inn, which bore his name and where his mother lived and ruled, of the property he owned, the place and people to which--by half at least of his nature and much more than half his memory--he belonged, the comfort of this spiritual esoteric relation became but a meagre evasive thing. It was too unsubstantial. Doubts and fears encircled it. She grew heart-sick for some fresh testimony, some clear immediate assurance that time and absence had not staled or undermined the romance. If only she could speak of it! But that was forbidden by every obligation of filial piety. Never had her relation to her father been more tender, more happy; yet only through sudden pressure of outward circumstance could she speak to him of Faircloth. To do so, without serious necessity, would be, as she saw it, a wanton endangering of his peace.--If only the dear man with the blue eyes hadn't removed himself! She had counted upon his permanent support and counsel, on his smoothing away difficulties from the path of her dealings with Faircloth; but he appeared to have given her altogether the go-by, to have passed altogether out of her orbit. And meditating, in the softly bright May weather beneath those high forget-me-not blue skies, upon his defection, our maiden felt quite desperately experienced and grown up, thrown back upon her own resources, thrown in upon her rather solitary life. Throughout the summer visitors came and went; but never those two desired figures, Faircloth or Carteret. Dr. McCabe, vociferous in welcome, affectionate, whimsical and choleric, trundled over from Stourmouth on a bicycle of phenomenal height. "On the horse without wheels I'm proficient enough," he declared. "Know the anatomy of the darlin' beast as well as I do my own, inside and out. But, be dashed, if the wheels without the horse aren't beyond me quite. Lord love you, but the skittish animal's given me some ugly knocks, cast me away, it has, in the wayside ditch, covering me soul with burning shame, and me jacket with malodorous mud."