"One can't walk for long in this wood without coming upon that glimpse of the sea outside," remarked Mrs. Cartwright, gazing at it, and taking in a deep, enjoying breath. "Sea through pine-needles is so like the blink of very blue eyes fringed by thick black lashes! It reminds me so of a man I was once very much in love with----" Quick as a shot came the interruption to what she was saying; a hoarse curt "Don't!" over her shoulder; a hand that clutched at her upper arm, and then dropped as soon as it had touched her. She wheeled, startled. She faced the angry, hurt, and jealous eyes of a man. Jack Awdas, looking steadily down into her astonished face, repeated in that husky, angry tone; "Don't. Don't do it! Don't talk to me about any man you've loved. I can't bear it. D'you see? You----I----You mustn't." She said nothing, in the extreme of surprise. He said nothing more either. It is possible that he was as startled as she was by the declaration that had broken from his lips, and whose sound was still ringing in their ears. The boy had not meant to say it. He had not known what he had meant to say; his mind had been, as it were, filled by some luminous and bewildering and concealing mist. Now a breath had blown aside a corner of that mist: he caught a glimpse of the heights and depths that it had been hiding--for how many hours, how many days? He did not know. Only it seemed to him that since that night of his bad dream, since his eyes had closed upon the sight of that woman watching, lovely with Pity, he had woken up to a new world. It was full of strangeness and unrest, that world; it was full of sudden thrills. It held impatience to hear her voice, to touch her hand. It held longing and mystery. It held worship of a laugh or gesture from her. It held amazement at oneself; incredulity that one could feel these things. Now, he found, it held also Pain.... This woman had been made part of his life by that vigil shared. He could not bear the thought of her in other men's lives; couldn't bear to think of it, much less to hear of it in words.... It couldn't be. She was his! They walked on in silence, these two English people from the hotel; each treading a maze of hidden thought as they went. No word of it escaped them for the present. Jack Awdas was the first to speak. He said, his husky voice once more composed: "You haven't had a look at this place yet, have you?" "No," replied Mrs. Cartwright, also in the accents of every day. "You know the way, don't you?" "Yes; Ross and I explored the oyster-beds the first day we came over. Rather interesting. I thought perhaps the place might come in useful to you as--as 'copy.'" "Oh yes," murmured Mrs. Cartwright, out of the labyrinth of her thoughts....