"No," said Eva, rising; "let me stay here. You need not be afraid." "Of course I am not afraid," answered Fanny, gravely. "My daughter will never do anything unseemly; she has too much pride." "I am afraid I have no pride--that is, not as you have it, mamma. Pride doesn't seem to me at all important compared with---- But of course I know that there is nothing I can do. He is perfectly indifferent. Only do not take me away again--do not." "Why do you wish to stay?" "Because then I can think--for three days more--that he is at least as near me as that." She trembled as she said this; there was a spot of sombre red in each cheek; her fair face looked strange amid her disordered hair. Her mother watched her helplessly. All her beliefs, all her creed, all her precedents, the experience of her own life and her own nature even, failed to explain such a phenomenon as this. And it was her own child who was saying these things. The next day Eva was passive. She wandered about the terrace, or sat for hours motionless staring blankly at the sea. Her mother left her to herself. She had comprehended that words were useless. She pretended to be embroidering, but in reality as she drew her stitches she was counting the hours as they passed: seventy-two hours; forty-eight hours. Would he ever be gone? [Illustration: "SHE SAT DOWN AND GATHERED HER CHILD TO HER BREAST"] On the second day, in the afternoon, she discovered that Eva had disappeared. The girl had been on the terrace with Mademoiselle; Mademoiselle had gone to her room for a moment, and when she returned her pupil could not be found. She had not passed through the drawing-room, where Fanny was sitting with her pretended industry; nor through the other door, for Rosine was at work there, and had seen nothing of her. There remained only the rock stairway to the beach. Mademoiselle ran down it swiftly: no one. But there was a small boat not far off, she said. Fanny, who was near-sighted, got the glass. In a little boat with a broad sail there were two figures; one was certainly David Rod, and the other--yes, the other was Eva. There was a breeze, the boat was rapidly going westward round the cliffs; in two minutes more it was out of sight. Fanny wrung her hands. The French woman, to whom the event wore a much darker hue than it did to the American mother, turned yellowly pale. At this moment Horace Bartholomew came out on the terrace; uneasy, for Fanny's missive had explained nothing, he had followed his letter himself. "What is it?" he said, as he saw the agitation of the two women. "Your friend--_yours_--the man you brought here, has Eva with him at this moment out on the bay!" said Fanny, vehemently. "Well, what of that? You must look at it with Punta Palmas eyes, Fanny; at Punta Palmas it would be an ordinary event." "But my Eva is not a Punta Palmas girl, Horace Bartholomew!"