too, was no more than a moon-spun thread. Her little hands were clasped together and her lips just parted, as though she were about to answer some voice that she alone could hear. “You are a spirit,” said Vytal. And then—then she laughed, and the laugh, although fraught with sadness, transformed her instantly. She became a child with it, a sweet, lovable, beautiful child—all reality, innocence, and health. The laughter in her lips converted these fastnesses of expression to its playground, and, romping, chased away all visionary looks. Her cheeks, dimpling, lost their pallor in a blush. One hand smoothed back the straying lock, the other drew her hood yet lower, while her hazel eyes looking up from under it seemed to possess the magic brown of a russet-bedded brook with sunlight playing beneath its surface—and the sunlight was this wonderful transforming laughter. “You are a child,” he declared, with more of passion in his voice and less of silent wonder. The tone startled her; the grave look came back into her face, and she stepped from the moonlight into the shadow of a sail. “Nay,” he said, with an incomprehensible sadness in his voice. “Now you are a woman. The sky and the sea are no more changeable.” “A woman,” she whispered, compressing her lips and turning white, as though nerving herself for a strenuous effort of will—“a woman, and—and—but no, wait, sleep, dream, and dreams will bring you happiness—look you, the sky seems clear—the sea is tranquil. Yet come!” With a hand on his arm she drew him across the deck into the dense shadow of the rigging. “See, it is but a step from light to darkness, and then—look—the sky!” He followed the direction of her gaze, and saw again the long ridge of cloud, from behind which the moon had risen. The hill was a mountain now, and black with storm. “It comes all too quickly,” she said, shivering, and gave him her hand. It was very cold. Bending low he kissed the fingers, and then, holding them in his firm grasp, looked down into her eyes as though to read their meaning if he could. But still making no answer in any way, she trembled. His mute bewilderment and uncomprehending pain were becoming unendurable to her. “Oh, mayhap it were kinder,” she whispered, finally, half to herself, “and yet I cannot see that deep face show greater pain. Nay, let us not hasten the storm ourselves; it comes whate’er we do, then perchance”—she was forcing a show of cheerfulness into her manner—“perchance, after all, you may not mind so much. Good-night, oh, good-night—” and before he could realize it her hand was withdrawn from his and her hooded figure had gone away into the shadows. CHAPTER III “Such reasons make white black, And dark night day.” —MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.