“I suppose I am; but I didn’t know it until I met your little sister.” A warm tide of color spread over her pale face and throat. She leant over me and kissed Dorrie. When the child opened her eyes she said, “Come, darling, it’s nearly time for tea. We must be going.” I helped her to gather up her things, taking all the time I could in the hope that she would ask me to accompany her. She offered me her hand, saying, “Perhaps we shall meet again.” “I’m sure I hope so. Ransby is such a little place.” “Yes, but our movements are so uncertain. I don’t know how long we may be staying.” “At any rate we’ve had a good time to-day.” “Yes. You have been very kind. I’m sure Dorrie will remember you. Good-by.” I watched them grow smaller across the sands, till they entered into the shadow of the cliff. I had a mad impulse to pursue them--to follow them at a distance and find out where they lived. How did I know that they had not vanished forever out of my life? I called myself a fool for not having seized my opportunities, however precipitately, while they were mine. The wreck looked desolate now; all the romance had departed from it. The long emptiness of the shore filled me with loneliness. As I walked homeward, I strove to memorize her every tone and gesture. Their memory might be all that I should ever have of her. I was mortally afraid that we should never meet again. CHAPTER II--I MEET HER AGAIN Next morning I walked along the north beach in the hope that I might catch sight of her. I was sure that she had shared my quickening of passion; it was because she had felt it and been frightened by it, that she had wakened Dorrie and hurried so abruptly away. I was sufficiently vain to assure myself that only the timidity of love could account for the sudden scurry of her flight. With incredible short-sightedness, I had allowed them to leave me without ascertaining their surname. My only clue, whereby I might trace them, was the abbreviated forms of their Christian names. Dorrie probably stood for Dorothy or Dorothea; Vi for Vivian or Violet. Directly after breakfast I had studied the visitors’ list in _The Ransby Chronicle_, hoping to come across these two Christian names in combination with the same surname. My search had been unrewarded, for only the initials of Christian names were printed and the V’s and the D’s were bewilderingly plentiful. On approaching the wreck I became oppressed with a nervous sense of the proprieties. I was ashamed of intruding myself again. If she were there, how should I excuse my coming? That attraction to her was my only motive would be all too plain. I had at my disposal none of the social cloaks of common interests and common acquaintance, which serve as a rule to disguise the primitive fact of a man’s liking for a woman. The hypocrisy of pretending that a second meeting in the same place was accidental would be evident.