Hogvardt shrugged his shoulders, raised his brows, smiled and observed: ‘I trust you’re acting for the best, my lord.’ Denny made no answer at all. He kicked the ground with his foot. I knew very well what was in Denny’s mind. Denny was of my family on his mother’s side, and Denny’s eye asked, ‘Where is the word of a Wheatley?’ All this I realised fully. I read his mind then more clearly than I could read my own; for had we been alone, and had he put to me the plain question, ‘Do you mean to make her your wife, or are you playing another trick?’ by heaven, I should not have known what to answer! I had begun a trick; the plan was to persuade the islanders into dispersing peacefully by my pretence, and then to slip away quietly by myself, trusting to their good sense--although a broken reed, yet the only resource--to make them accept an accomplished fact. But was that my mind now, since I had held Phroso in my arms, and her lips had met mine in the kiss which the islanders hailed as the pledge of our union? I do not know. I saw Phroso turn and go into the house again. The captain spoke to Denny; I saw him point up to the window of the room which Mouraki had occupied. He went in. Denny motioned Hogvardt to his side, and they two also went into the house without asking me to accompany them. Gradually the throng of islanders dispersed. Orestes flung off in sullen disappointment; the men, those who had knives carefully hiding them, walked down the road like peaceful citizens; the women strolled away, laughing, chattering, gossiping, delighted, as women always are, with the love affair. Thus I was left alone in front of the house. It was late afternoon, and clouds had gathered over the sea. The air was very still; no sound struck my ear except the wash of the waves on the shore. There I stood fighting the battle, for how long I do not know. The struggle within me was very sore. On either side seemed now to lie a path that it soiled my feet to tread: on the one was a broken pledge, on the other a piece of trickery and knavishness. The joy of a love that could be mine only through dishonour was imperfect joy; yet, if that love could not be mine, life seemed too empty a thing to live. The voices of the two sounded in my ear--the light merry prattle and the calmer sweeter voice. Ah, this island of mine, what things it put on a man! At last I felt a hand laid on my shoulder. I turned, and in the quick-gathering dusk of the evening I saw Kortes’s sister; she looked long and earnestly into my face. ‘Well?’ said I. ‘What is it now?’ ‘She must see you, my lord,’ answered the woman. ‘She must see you now, at once.’ I looked again at the harbour and the sea, trying to quell the tumult of my thoughts and to resolve what I would do. I could find no course and settle on no resolution. ‘Yes, she must see me,’ said I at last. I could say nothing else.