It may very likely have been my lighted cigar that guided Eleanor Stanleigh to where I was sitting in the shadows.  Her uncle, Major Stanleigh, had left me a few minutes before, and I was glad of the respite from the queer business he had involved me in.  The two of us had returned that afternoon from Muloa, where I had taken him in my schooner, the Sylph, to seek out Leavitt and make some inquiries—­very important inquiries, it seemed, in Miss Stanleigh’s behalf.

Three days in Muloa, under the shadow of the grim and flame-throated mountain, while I was forced to listen to Major Stanleigh’s persistent questionnaire and Leavitt’s erratic and garrulous responses—­all this, as I was to discover later, at the instigation of the Major’s niece—­had made me frankly curious about the girl.

I had seen her only once, and then at a distance across the veranda, one night when I had been dining there with a friend; but that single vision of her remained vivid and unforgettable—­a tall girl of a slender shapeliness, crowned by a mass of reddish-gold hair that smoldered above the clear olive pallor of her skin.  With that flawless and brilliant colouring she was marked for observation—­had doubtless been schooled to a perfect indifference to it, for the slow, almost indolent, grace of her movements was that of a woman coldly unmindful of the gazes lingering upon her.  She could not have been more than twenty-six or -seven, but I got an unmistakable impression of weariness or balked purpose emanating from her in spite of her youth and glorious physique.  I looked up to see her crossing the veranda to join her uncle and aunt—­correct, well-to-do English people that one placed instantly—­and my stare was only one of many that followed her as she took her seat and threw aside the light scarf that swathed her bare and gleaming shoulders.

My companion, who happened to be the editor of the local paper, promptly informed me regarding her name and previous residence—­the gist of some “social item” which he had already put into print; but these meant nothing, and I could only wonder what had brought her to such an out-of-the-way part of the world as Port Charlotte.  She did not seem like a girl who was traveling with her uncle and aunt; one got rather the impression that she was bent on a mission of her own and was dragging her relatives along because the conventions demanded it.  I hazarded to my companion the notion that a woman like Miss Stanleigh could have but one of two purposes in this lonely part of the world—­she was fleeing from a lover or seeking one.

“In that case,” rejoined my friend, with the cynical shrug of the newspaper man, “she has very promptly succeeded.  It’s whispered that she is going to marry Joyce—­of Malduna Island, you know.  Only met him a fortnight ago.  Quite a romance, I’m told.”

I lifted my eyebrows at that, and looked again at Miss Stanleigh.  Just at that instant she happened to look up.  It was a wholly indifferent gaze; I am confident that she was no more aware of me than if I had been one of the veranda posts which her eyes bad chanced to encounter.  But in the indescribable sensation of that moment I felt that here was a woman who bore a secret burden, although, as my informing host put it, her heart had romantically found its haven only two weeks ago.