Hermione hesitated. Applebo watched her, with an expression which the casual observer would not have ascribed entirely to his interest in an unknown parent. Hermione, in that moment, was very lovely. The romantic excitement of the situation had brought her warm soul into her face, which was radiant in the colourless light. About them swirled the fog, thicker than before. It beaded Hermione's dark eyebrows and softened her brilliant cheeks. She was thinking deeply, when out of the mist came the distant _dong ... dong ... dong_ ... of a ship's bell, patient and monotonous, muffled and lifeless of note, yet with an insistence, partly anxious, partly peremptory. Hermione looked at Applebo and smiled. "What a situation!" said she. "Yonder is your father ... striking the bell to guide me home!" CHAPTER XIII Applebo looked at her and nodded. "My _father!_" he said. His hand was lying on the yawl's low rail. Hermione reached up and touched it with her own. It was a quick, impulsive little gesture, friendly and sympathetic. "Would you like to have me tell him?" she asked. "Because if so, I will." Applebo's strong hand turned, caught hers in his firm grip, and carried it to his lips. "That would be the act of a real friend!" he cried. "Will you?" "Of course I will. In fact, I think that Uncle Chris would rather learn it from me than from anybody in the world." "I'm sure he would! Tell him then, Hermione." "When?" "Choose the time as seems best to you. I will go away as soon as the weather clears. Write me to the New York Yacht Club. And you are sure that it's not asking too much?" "No. You see, it is for Uncle Chris as much as for you. More, perhaps, for he is getting on in years and must feel his lack of the ties of blood. Now I must go. Hear that patient bell! It reminds me of Uncle Chris ... steady and constant and so dependable!" She glanced up at him with her vivid smile. Applebo's face was transfigured ... as Hermione thought, at the prospect of finding a father. It is more probable that his radiant expression was at finding something else. At any rate, all of the sleepy, baffling expression was absent; might never have been there. The amber eyes were wide and alert; clear, steady, looking into hers with a rich golden light in their depths which set Hermione's pulse a-tingle. In fact, Hermione was unconsciously aware of some peculiar rich, warm glow all about the poet, and, like a brilliant green moth, she found great difficulty in leaving it for the chill, surrounding gloom. But the patient bell was calling steadily, so she said, with regret: "I should like to talk with you some more about all of this, but I don't want to worry ... your father." She smiled; then, a sudden idea striking her, she added: "Why not get in my skiff and I will row past the schooner and sing out to say that I am all right, but not quite ready to go aboard. Then we can have a few minutes more ... to discuss the matter."