That night, too, Andrew Drever told me, as he had promised to do, how he had received news from Copenhagen concerning Thora; how the insurance money on the ship Undine and on Mr. Quendale’s life was to revert to Thora.  This would surely make her a wealthy woman.  But the business connected with this, and the inheritance of her father’s real and personal property, required that Thora should go to Copenhagen to establish her claims in person at the chancery courts of Denmark.  Mr. Drever was interesting himself specially on her account in the capacity of a guardian, and he was soon to accompany her to Denmark and leave her there, probably for several years.

Chapter XLIII.  Thora’s Answer.

It was a fresh, breezy, August afternoon.  In the open sea, far out, east of the Skerries, we were scudding along blithely, with a flock of seagulls flying wantonly in our wake.  The low hills of the Orkneys rose like a faint haze on the horizon to westward.  Light waves, touched with green, curled over into snowy spray about our sides as our boat bent over and plunged buoyantly through them.  Blue was the far-stretching sea, and bluer still the summer sky.

Away to the eastward, whither our bowsprit pointed, a white-sailed clipper grew larger as we approached her.  The Danish ensign flew at her mizzen; the familiar signal for a pilot streamed from her fore peak.  My heart beat quicker, telling me who was aboard this fair vessel as nearer and nearer we drew.  Now we could distinguish the tiny figures moving about her yards, as one by one her studding sails were taken in.

Sitting in the stern sheets of my own pilot boat, I watched and watched for some sign on the ship’s quarterdeck.  At last a white object appeared over the rail, waving with regular motion.  I took out my handkerchief and unfurled it in reply, still with faster beating heart.

“Lower away, my lads!” I cried, putting the helm to starboard.

“Ay, ay, sir,” responded Willie Hercus, who had left the Clasper and was now our mate.  Then down fell our sails, flapping loud in the breeze, and out went our long sweeping oars.

We crept in under the vessel’s counter; a rope was thrown to us, and in a few moments I was on her quarterdeck, standing all trembling and nervous before a tall beautiful woman, whose deep-blue eyes and fair, breeze-blown hair were all that I could see—­everything else was lost to me.

“Halcro!” she exclaimed, holding out her two sunburnt hands in greeting.

“Thora!” I murmured, taking her hands in mine.

“You have expected me, then?” she said, as I drew her gently to the rail to let the sailors pass.

We stood there, looking into each other’s face, in which the four years that had passed since our last meeting had left their maturing touch.

“I have been expecting you these two months past,” I said, looking wistfully over the sea.  “There has never come a ship from Denmark but I have boarded her, hoping to see you.”