She dropped back against his arm exhausted.  Henderson held her and learned what suffering truly means.  He fanned her with his hat, rubbed her cold hands and murmured broken, incoherent things.  By and by slow tears slipped from under her closed lids, but when she opened them her eyes were dull and hard.

“What a rag one is when the last secret of the soul is torn out and laid bare!” she cried.

Henderson thrust his handkerchief into her fingers and whispered, “Edith, the boat has been creeping up.  It’s very close.  Maybe some of our crowd are on it.  Hadn’t we better slip away from here before it lands?”

“If I can walk,” she said.  “Oh, I am so dead tired, Hart!

“Yes, dear,” said Henderson soothingly.  “Just try to pass the landing before the boat anchors.  If I only dared carry you!”

They struggled through the waiting masses, but directly opposite the landing there was a backward movement in the happy, laughing crowd, the gang-plank came down with a slam, and people began hurrying from the boat.  Crowded against the fish house on the dock, Henderson could only advance a few steps at a time.  He was straining every nerve to protect and assist Edith.  He saw no one he recognized near them, so he slipped his arm across her back to help support her.  He felt her stiffen against him and catch her breath.  At the same instant, the clearest, sweetest male voice he ever had heard called:  “Be careful there, little men!”

Henderson sent a swift glance toward the boat.  Terence O’More had stepped from the gang-plank, leading a little daughter, so like him, it was comical.  There followed a picture not easy to describe.  The Angel in the full flower of her beauty, richly dressed, a laugh on her cameo face, the setting sun glinting on her gold hair, escorted by her eldest son, who held her hand tightly and carefully watched her steps.  Next came Elnora, dressed with equal richness, a trifle taller and slenderer, almost the same type of colouring, but with different eyes and hair, facial lines and expression.  She was led by the second O’More boy who convulsed the crowd by saying:  “Tareful, Elnora!  Don’t ’oo be ‘teppin’ in de water!”

People surged around them, purposely closing them in.

“What lovely women!  Who are they?  It’s the O’Mores.  The lightest one is his wife.  Is that her sister?  No, it is his!  They say he has a title in England.”

Whispers ran fast and audible.  As the crowd pressed around the party an opening was left beside the fish sheds.  Edith ran down the dock.  Henderson sprang after her, catching her arm and assisting her to the street.

“Up the shore!  This way!” she panted.  “Every one will go to dinner the first thing they do.”

They left the street and started around the beach, but Edith was breathless from running, while the yielding sand made difficult walking.