"Danny," she murmured, with plaintive tenderness, "it is wrong of me to ask you to do this for me--very, very wrong." His eyes were dilated. The face, hitherto unutterably mournful to see, was alive with a strange fire. But he said nothing. He turned his head toward the lonely sea, whose low moan came up through the dark night. She caught both his hands with a passionate grasp. "Danny," she murmured again, "if there was another name for love that is not--" She stopped, but her eyes were close to his. He turned. "Don't look like that," he cried, in a voice that went to the girl's heart like an arrow. She dropped his hands. She trembled and glowed. "Oh, my own heart will break," she said; "to love and not be loved, to be loved and not to love--" * * * * * ["I think at whiles I'd like to die in a big sea like that."] Mona started. What had recalled Danny's strange words? Had he spoken them afresh? No. * * * * * "Danny," she murmured once more, in tones of endearment, and again she grasped his hands. Their eyes met. The longing, yearning look in hers answered to the wild glare in his. "Don't look at me like that," he repeated, with the same low moan. Mona felt as if that were the last she was ever to see of the lad in this weary world. He loved her with all his great, broken, bleeding heart. Her lips quivered. Then the brave, fearless, stainless girl put her quivering lips to his. To Danny that touch was as fire. With a passionate cry he flung his arms about her. For an instant her head lay on his breast. "Now go," she whispered, and broke from his embrace. CHAPTER XIII THE FLIGHT AND PURSUIT Danny tore himself away with heart and brain aflame. Were they to meet again? Yes. For one terrible and perilous moment they were yet to stand face to face. As he ran down the road toward the town, Danny encountered a gang of men with lanterns, whooping, laughing, singing carols, and beating the bushes. It was the night before Christmas-eve, and they were "hunting the wren." Tommy Tear and Davy Cain were among them. Danny heard their loud voices, and knew they had trapped the harbor-master. The first act in to-night's tragedy had begun. Two hours and a half later Mona passed the same troop of men. They were now standing in the Market-place. Tommy Tear and Davy Cain had a long pole from shoulder to shoulder, and from this huge bracket a tiny bird--a wren--was suspended. It was one of their Christmas customs. Their companions came up at intervals and plucked a feather from the wren's breast. Tommy-Bill-beg was singing a carol. A boy held a lantern to a crumpled paper, from which the unlettered coxcomb pretended to sing.