Had the poet acted like a man ... or a scoundrel, as one prefers to look at it ... and kissed Hermione then and there with that enthusiasm which her prettiness and the situation as a whole appeared to warrant, there is absolutely no telling what might have happened. Instead of which, Mr. Applebo's face grew sleepier, and his eyes blinkier than ever, while the look which he threw at Hermione was full of appreciation of a purely impersonal character. "Huntington Wood smelted out his alloy," he observed. "Instead of bewailing his ill-fortune and howling for sympathy, he went off and started a Home for Sick Babies. Now he is back again ... pure metal. Do you suppose that it will do him any good?" Hermione felt that she would like to employ some of her father's forceful sea-going expressions. Here was Cécile popping up again to spoil everything at the most interesting moment! Yet not for the world would she point out to him his silly mistake. She intended that this disillusionment should come as a _coup de théâtre_, which would leave the poet in a state of collapse. So she swung smartly on her heel and shrugged. "Huntington Wood no longer offers his gold ... and nobody can blame him," said she, and resumed her walk toward the beach. They skirted the pine-scrub, passed along the edge of the marsh, then crossed the strip of sand and rock to the beach. The tide was at the last of the ebb, and as she glanced toward the spot where she had left her boat, Hermione gave a little cry of dismay. "Look...!" she cried; "it's gone...!" What had happened was so plainly sketched on the open page of the beach that one could run and read. Several yards above the water's edge was indicated the place where Hermione had grounded on landing, as was shown by her own tracks, left from the spot where she had stepped ashore. From farther down the beach came another trail, a man's, running to where the skiff lay, while a long furrow and some deeply gouged foot-prints showed where he had run the skiff down to the water's edge. Here, before the present rim of the tide was reached, all vanished, as though boat and man had taken flight into the air. Hermione threw a frightened look at Applebo. The poet was standing straight as an Indian, his bushy eyebrows drawn down, and his lips puckered. "That swine of a game-keeper...!" he growled, in his deep, though husky, bass. "I wish that I had broken his neck. Why didn't I think about his swiping the boat? I _am_ a fool!" CHAPTER VI "What shall we do?" asked Hermione. Applebo looked at her and blinked. "Can you swim as well as you can row and shoot and walk?" he asked. Hermione looked out across the dancing waters of the bay. "It must be a good mile and a half to the _Shark_," said she, slowly. "The yawl is about half the distance, but" ... the colour flooded her face... "even under the circumstances, I should hardly care to swim to her."