The greater part of the day she spent in wandering on the shore of the bay. Whenever she went there, instinctively she glanced at the mound of sand where, on the occasion of their first meeting, she had seen Emil bury the torn scraps of a letter. Not that she would have touched the mound for the world, but the strictest would not censure a glance of curiosity in that direction. Owing to its protection from the wind, the little grave, strangely enough, had remained intact. But this morning a scrap of paper appeared on the beach bearing, in what was incontestably a woman's handwriting, the single word "Dearest." Scarcely cognizant of what she did, Rachel, like a feminine Crusoe, hovered over this bit of evidence on the sand. Like the legendary hero her consciousness of being alone was destroyed, but with different effect, for instead of an expression of surprise not unmixed with fear, her look was one of suspicious misery. "That letter was never from his mother," flashed through her mind. "Old ladies don't make D's that way, so big and round,--but small and trembly. No, whoever she is, she's young. Of course," reason suggested, "the letter may have been written by some relative--by a cousin, perhaps." The supposition was barely tenable. With the keen brightness of eye that betokens jealousy, she remained poised for the briefest fraction of time above the tantalizing find, then she turned and pranced away. The instant devoted to the scrutiny had been so short as to admit of scarcely more than half a heart-throb, so short as scarcely to be termed a look at all, yet a sense of dishonour was not lacking in her suffering. She walked, stopped to think, shed a tear or two, and eventually grew calm. What comforted her was the thought that Emil cared so little for its writer that he had torn the letter into bits. By afternoon her anxiety to forgive him for the misdemeanour of the day previous had grown to such proportions as to drive her to the place of meeting much earlier than usual; and waiting there still further increased the feeling. When she saw him coming, she rose. Her arms, hanging down her sides, trembled. She was all languor, all expectancy; she was the desire for reconciliation incarnate. Yet even from a distance, she knew that something was wrong. She turned upon him a look of inquiry as he drew near with his hands sunk in his pockets and his head lowered. His face was clouded, his moustache curved downward, though when he lifted his eyes to hers, into them flashed a warm and intensely grateful smile. But the expression was succeeded by a gloomy one. "Well, it's all over," he announced. "No need for me to have slaved so. I'm thrown aside and someone else goes ahead and reaps the profits." "What do you mean?" she gasped.