"The wicked old man!" she cried. "It's no joke to me. It comes near a tragedy! It cost me almost everything I had to come here. If that's a joke, I call it a hard one!" She was radiant in her anger. I was spell-bound as I watched her. [Illustration: Will Grefé's Idea of the Heroine.] "That is tough," I exclaimed, "you have no idea how sorry I am--honestly you haven't!" I think I must have squeezed her hands, for she looked at them and drew them from mine with a conscious little blush. "Don't you think we'd better be going to the boats?" she ventured. "It's after sunset." "Since you put it as a question, no!" I answered. "I see no reason why we should go to the boats. As for the sunset, they have these every night down here; but you and I don't meet every day upon this key. We ought to make the most of it!" "But it's all done--the treasure hunt," she said, digging a little hole in the sand with the toe of her white canvas shoe. "It's _not_ all done!" I cried. "_Yours_ may be finished, but mine is just beginning and I give you fair warning, here and now, dear Graham," (I said the "dear" quite plainly this time), "that this _new_ treasure hunt of mine is going to make the old one look like the picnic party it was!" "Really--really----" she began. "Yes, really!" I exclaimed. "I assure you," she faltered; "I assure you, I don't know--I don't know what you----" "Oh, Graham, Graham!" I cried, "you've been reading novels. That's what girls always say in novels--'I don't know what you mean.' Yet, they all _do_ know what he means, just as well as you know what _I_ mean!" The digging she was doing with her little slipper interested her more than ever now. "Graham," I continued, "whether you knew or not, I would have told you what I meant. I wouldn't lose the luxury of telling you, for worlds! This is it: I came here to hunt for treasure----" "_Buried_ treasure?" she inquired, smiling faintly at the toe of her white slipper. "But we didn't find the buried treasure," I pleaded. "_You_ found nothing but me--to help you dig. But _I_ discovered something more than buried treasure. I found out where there was a treasure--a living treasure--greater than jewels and gold could ever be! It's a treasure I can't reach by digging in the sand, Graham. It must be given to me freely, and by you!" She was silent for a moment, then she faced me. "It's because you're sorry for me," she said, flushing; "I thank you, but I can't accept a sacrifice like that!" "No, dear Graham," I persisted, "it's not because I'm sorry for you. I'll be sorry for you, though, if you don't take me now--sorry to see you dogged, and pestered, and followed everywhere, and worshipped by a man like me, until you have to take him to avoid his persistence!" She smiled at me frankly. "You have no idea," she laughed, "how I long to say 'This is so sudden,' but after 'I don't know what you mean,' I am afraid to!"