Only for a moment did he hesitate, and then he wrote a check for the small fortune he owned for a day, and descending the stairs, handed it to his aunt. "Come, auntie," he said cheerfully, "don't shed any more tears over that accursed Weston. You have been a good mother to me for many years, and here is your money back." Then he swallowed a lump in his own throat and turned away. Over the scene that followed a veil shall be drawn. That evening at the tea-table, Winn, almost beyond praise now in his aunt's estimation, told the story of his summer on Rockhaven and what manner of people he found there, their ways of living, and all about them, even to their dress. The little church and its poorly paid minister, whose simple and touching prayers had reached Winn's heart as none had before, were also mentioned; even the two bells answering one another across the island at eventide, and the new influence upon his life and thoughts they had wrought, were spoken of. Quaint old Jess with his fiddle came in for a share, and the ancient tide mill and its history as well. The old tower, the bold, frowning cliffs, and the gorge with the Devil's Oven opening into it were described. All the island, in fact, and all it contained, except--Mona. And when, late that evening, Winn's aunt kissed him good night and retired to her room, she knelt down and thanked God, who had opened her heart to care for this son of her dead sister. In a different mood when he reached his room, and conscious that his life's fortunes had yet to be wrought, Winn sat down and wrote to Mona. And so strange a love letter was it, and so misunderstood by her, that it must be given here. "Dear little Sweetheart," he wrote, "my life and hopes seem to have come to a full stop and I do not know what to say to you. My summer's work, and all my ambitions, as I feared, have ended in one grand crash. Out of this I saved your uncle and those on the island who bought stock. I also saved myself, or, as it turned out, my aunt's fortune, for unbeknown to me she had been led to invest in Rockhaven stock and lost all. As she has given me all that I have known of home since boyhood, I should have been more than ungrateful had I not taken care of her. "What my future plans are, I cannot say. The world is wide, and some place in it for me will be found. Where it is, or what doing, I know not. "It is but a few days since I left the island, hoping soon to return, and now it seems months. I recall all the charming hours we have passed together with keen interest, and yet they seem to-night like an old, old memory, returning even as the scenes of my boyhood return when I am despondent." More than this he wrote, but it need not be quoted, being merely tender phrases and without point. Mona, trying to read between the lines, as well she might, imagined it to be a farewell message and a good-by to herself.