“All right, Connie. Instruct your husband to play a few bars of it strictly in tune and I’ll see what I can do.” Hal straightened up suddenly on the bench with an air of pretended importance. “See to it that your singing’s strictly in tune,” Laurie advised. “I can be trusted to do the rest.” Already his musician’s fingers were finding the rhythmic introduction to Tosti’s “Boat Song.” “The night wind sighs, Our vessel flies, Across the dark lagoon.” Hal took up the swinging measures of the song in his clear, sweet tenor and sent it ringing across the water. Tonight he came into a new and sombre understanding of the song. Never before had he realized the undercurrent of doubt it contained. Perhaps Tosti had composed the song out of his own lover’s hopes and fears. Unconsciously Hal’s weight of troubled doubt went into an impassioned rendering. Laurie and Constance understood perfectly his unintentional betrayal of his feelings. Danny, razor keen of perception, also grasped the situation. This time he had nothing to say. “And here am I, To live or die; As you prove hard or kind; Prove hard or kind.” Jerry sat looking unduly solemn as Hal tunefully voiced the sentimental, worshipping lines and took up the echoing refrain. When the song ended an odd silence fell which no one of them seemed willing to shatter. Connie and Laurie were frankly holding hands, their young faces touched with a romance born of music and moonlight. Danny was staring intently at Jerry as though absorbed in her management of the wheel. Marjorie sat bathed in moonlight, looking unutterably lovely and trying her utmost not to appear self-conscious. She was under the blind impression that she alone understood what lay behind Hal’s song. In reality she understood less concerning the strength of his love and devotion for her than did those who had been their intimate girl and boyhood friends. She did, however, detect a certain melancholy tinge to his singing which gave her a peculiar conscience-stricken feeling. “No, I don’t care to sing any more tonight,” he said, when Laurie came out of his dream and asked him to sing an old Spanish serenade. “I’m not in a singing humor.” “Poor old Hal,” Jerry was thinking as she gave the wheel an impatient turn by way of showing her disapproval. “He does love her so! Marjorie’s the sweetest girl ever, but she’s hard, not kind, when it comes to love. She’s a regular stony heart.” CHAPTER III.—“SOMETHING TO REPORT” “Tomorrow? Let me think.” Marjorie’s dark brows drew thoughtfully together. “Why, I’m not going anywhere, Hal.” Marjorie made an effort to be casual which was only half successful. “I’m going to be busy packing. I shall have to take an early train for Hamilton on Thursday morning so as not to reach there late at night. I won’t have a minute’s spare time Thursday morning. I’ll have to be ready as ready can be on Wednesday night.”