watching and puzzling.  “She is fond of John still:  she cannot bear to break his heart—­she would rather break her own—­and she is dying of her attraction to the other.”  As she sat there, still observing them, wondering what could be done, she turned and laid her arm on her brother’s shoulder, and rested her head beside it with her eyes full of tears.  And at the movement John bent and kissed her forehead, and she saw that he himself was at last awake; and Reyburn, looking at them, saw it too.  Perhaps the tears dimmed her sight a little, and gave Lilian a sort of glorified look to her, standing still a moment with the light of the late rising moon on her face; but then as her gaze fell again on Reyburn, on his lofty form and kingly manner, his proud face, his bold bright eye, it seemed to her as if it were Lucifer tempting an angel; and all at once she had resolved what she would do to save Lilian, to save her brother.  She could do it well, she said, well and safely—­she who already hated the man.  Courage came with the resolution, courage and strength:  she began to laugh and scatter jests across the grave conversation of John and her father; presently she was humming a gay Spanish air.

“That is right, Helen,” said her brother.  “Sing something to us.  My father says your voice would fill the Tacon theatre.”

And at that she sang—­not the air of the little bolero again, but a low, melancholy song that began with a sigh, but swelled ever clearer and higher, till, like the bursting of a flower, it opened and deepened into one breath of passionate sweetness and triumph.  The rich voice rose to all the meaning of the music, and, though they could not understand the words, they thrilled before the singer, Late into the midnight she sang—­the bunch of blossoms that was in her hand as she came on board still shedding its pungent odors round her as the blossoms died—­strange wild songs that she had learned in the two years of her tropic life; ancient and plaintive Spanish airs; Moorish songs whose savage tunes were sweet as the honey of the rocks; wild and mournful Indian airs that the Spaniards might have heard in those Caribbean islands when first they burst upon their peaceful seas; and by and by a sleepy nocturne that seemed to lull the wind, to charm the ship, and hold the great moon hovering overhead; and as they rocked from wave to wave of the glimmering water, and that pure voice rose and poured out its melody, the soft vast southern night itself seemed to pause and listen.

Helen did not appear on the deck next day till the sunset came again, for Lilian was ill, and she remained with her; nor did Reyburn see her.  But as the heat of the day passed, and the sails, that had been hanging idle ever since the night-breeze fell, began to fill again, Helen ascended.