Carolyn advanced a few steps, and the two looked into each other's eyes for the first time since Prudence had been Rodney's wife. In the eyes of Prudence were pleading, and deprecation, and just enough unhappiness to win upon her cousin; and all these feelings were also truly in her heart. She was one of those subtly wise women who know how to make use of genuine emotion. Carolyn did not put out her hand. She could not quite do that,--not yet, anyway. She said, "How do you do, Prudence?" in quite the ordinary way, and as if the two had met the day before, and nothing particular had happened since. "Very well, thanks. Are you well, Cousin Caro?" was the response. To this Carolyn answered that her health had never been better. Then Mrs. Ffolliott, with some nervousness in her manner, asked after Rodney's health, adding that she had heard very distressing rumors about him. Carolyn looked away from Prudence as the latter made reply: "Rodney, poor boy, is getting to be a terrible hypochondriac. I don't know what we shall do with him. We must all try to amuse him." As she pronounced the word "all" she glanced markedly at Carolyn, who was gazing off to the horizon. "Then he isn't really ill?" asked Carolyn, turning calmly towards her guest and speaking as if referring to some stranger. "She certainly has good stuff in her," was the mental comment of Prudence as she answered, aloud, "Not very ill, I'm sure. A few functional disturbances of some of the organs, I forget just what ones; the liver, I imagine, and heart." "I should think being at the seashore might benefit him," said Mrs. Ffolliott, solicitously. "Oh, yes, of course it will." Thus Prudence dismissed the subject. She walked to where Carolyn had taken her place immediately after greeting her, a pillar of the piazza against which she was leaning. "Caro," she said, softly, "let me see you a moment, please." Carolyn showed the surprise she felt. She lifted her brows interrogatively as she asked, "Do you mean alone?" "Oh, yes; what can one say with Leander present?" "Let us go down to the beach, then," answered Carolyn, and the two started, being followed by Leander, until that person consented to go back on condition that Prue would return and ride a race with him that very morning. On the ridge of dry sand above high-water mark Carolyn and her cousin sat down. Neither spoke for some time; Carolyn was resolved not to be the first to break the silence. She would not aid Prudence in whatever she had to say, and she was so weakly human that she could hardly help shrinking a little away from her as she sat beside her. But she did not shrink; she sat with that utter quiet of which she was capable, hardly an eyelash stirring.