I find myself still a little sore on this point: unnecessarily so, you may be thinking. But you never had to explain it to the family in Boston, you see--and Sarah. I had. I can see her cold, grey-green eyes to this hour, her white starched shirt and her sharp steel belt buckle--ugh! It should be illegal, in a Republic where there are so many less sensible laws, for any woman to be so ostentatiously unattractive.... "Margarita," I said once, very soon after I had met her, "were you ever caught by the tide on those first rocks? See how it has crept up and cut them off." "Oh yes, often," she answered, "the first night Roger ever came here, for once. Do you not remember, I told you how he carried the blueberry pie and the milk out there and we ate them? He was so hungry! It was then that he looked at me so----" "Blueberry pie," I said hastily, "is very messy, I think, though undoubtedly good. It makes one's mouth so black." "I know," she murmured reminiscently, "I told Roger that his mouth was stained and I laughed at him. And then he said that mine was worse, because there was some on my chin--why do you scowl so, Jerry? Is that a wrong thing to tell?" "No, no," I assured her, "of course not." "I am glad," she said comfortably, "it is very strange that I cannot see the difference, myself. How do you see, Jerry? But I was telling you about the tide, was I not? When Roger said that about my mouth I tried to get the stain off, but I could not, and then Roger said it was no use trying any more and he kissed me." Here Margarita paused and patted my hand, tapping each finger nail lightly with her own finger-tips. "You need not be afraid, Jerry," she added encouragingly, "I shall not tell any more things about that." I drew away my hand irritably. "Well, well, what about the tide?" I said. Margarita's repulsed fingers lay loosely upcurled on her knees, which she hunched in front of her, like a boy. "Oh, it was only what you asked me, dear Jerry," she answered softly, "while Roger was kissing me that kiss, the tide _did_ come in!" CHAPTER VII I RIDE KNIGHT ERRANT It is easy to see that I should have made a poor novelist; it has been hard enough for me to give you any idea of scenes I did not myself witness, even though I had Roger and Margarita to help me out and an intimate knowledge of both of them, and when I try to fancy myself composing a tissue of fictitious events "all out of my head," as the children say, my pen drops weakly out of my fingers, in horror at the very thought. But now, thank heaven, the pull is over. From now on, I need tell only what I knew and saw, in the strange, interwoven life we three have led. Three only? Nay, Harriet of the true heart, Harriet of the tender hand, could we have been three without you? My fingers should wither before they left your name unwritten.