Then the little dory sailed away until it grew a mere speck on the water, and they ceased to watch it, the young people pairing off and walking up and down the sands. “Let us go back to the wreck. I want to talk to you,” Mrs. Dunn said imperiously to her cavalier. He gave her his arm, and they returned alone to the old hull and sat down side by side. Usually Percy Seabright was very gay and dashing in manner, and a great favorite with women for his courtliness, but at times he was a victim to the blues, and made himself a most unsocial companion to any one into whose company fate threw him. One of these moods had suddenly overtaken the dashing bachelor to-night. He lounged at Mrs. Dunn’s side, in gloomy silence until she began to rally him upon his depression. He turned his strange, glittering eyes upon her smiling face, and said abruptly: “Don’t jest with me, Ione. I am wretched. I can scarcely restrain myself from leaping into the sea and so ending the misery of my life!” His look was wild, his voice tragic, but Mrs. Dunn did not know that the woman who wants to be charming to a man must fall in with his moods--“from grave to gay, from lively to severe.” She pouted prettily. “You pay a poor compliment to me, permitting yourself to be unhappy in my presence,” she exclaimed, dropping her chin into two jeweled hands that held a tiny lace handkerchief, and looking up at him with arch reproach. But the coquetry was wasted on Percy Seabright. He sighed wearily, and looked away from her at the moonlit sea. “Can’t you see that I am troubled, Ione?” he said fretfully. “You know I have these fitful moods and that nothing can charm me out of them.” “But what is the cause of them, Percy?” she asked curiously. He looked back at her, and answered restlessly: “I will tell you what has caused these moods since I came back to The Lodge. It is the look of Ronald Vale in his daughter’s face.” “Italy Vale--so she resembles her father? But what is that to you, Percy?” “Everything, for it gives me the heartache. Ione, you know Ronald Vale was my dearest friend. I loved him with all the devotion of a boy’s warm heart. I have never known one happy hour since his tragic death, and that girl’s eyes--so dark, so glorious, so like her father’s--they break my heart.” “Is that the reason you hate the girl so bitterly?” she asked, with veiled malice. “Hate her?” he exclaimed. “Yes, you hate her and wish her dead,” was the strange reply. He started and gazed at her wildly, and she said significantly: “Italy Vale spoke the truth the day she said that some enemy had pushed her into the water. I lied when I said that I saw Emmett Harlow do the dastardly deed. It was your arm, Percy, but--I love you, and I know how to shield those that I love.” Even in the moonlight she could see his face whiten with awful terror. She laughed low and harshly.