He had answered:  “I am.”

She had no reason to doubt him.  Her father, her own father!  She remembered now a verse from the Psalms her father had always been quoting; but now she recited it with perfect understanding.

How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever?  How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?

She came upon the Song of Songs—­which had been pasted down in the Enschede Bible—­the burning litany of love; and from time to time she intoned some verse of tender lyric beauty.  There was one verse that haunted and mocked her.

Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love.

Here was Ruth Enschede—­sick of love!  Love—­something the world would always keep hidden from her, at least human love.  All she had found was the love of this dog.  She threw her arms around Rollo’s neck and laid her cheek upon the flea-bitten head.

“Oh, Rollo, there are so many things I don’t know!  But you love me, don’t you?”

Rollo wagged his stump violently and tried to lick her face.  He understood.  When she released him he ran down the beach for a stick which he fetched and laid at her feet.  But she was staring seaward and did not notice the offering.

* * * * *

October.  The skies became brilliant; the dry monsoon was setting in.  Then came the great day.  It was at lunch when McClintock announced that in the mail-pouch he had found a letter addressed to Howard Taber, care of Donald McClintock and so-forth.

Spurlock grew cold.  All that confidence, born of irony, disappeared; and fear laid hold of him.  The envelope might contain only a request as to what he wanted done with the manuscripts.  In mailing the tales he had not enclosed return postage or the equivalent in money.

“So you’re writing under a nom de plume, eh?” said McClintock, holding out the letter.

“You open it, Ruth.  I’m in a funk,” Spurlock confessed.

McClintock laughed as he gave the letter to Ruth.  She, having all the confidence in the world, ripped off an end and drew out the contents—­a letter and a check.  What the editor had to say none of the three cared just then.  Spurlock snatched the check out of Ruth’s hands and ran to the window.

“A thousand dollars in British pounds!...  A thousand dollars for four short stories!” The tan on Spurlock’s face lightened.  He was profoundly stirred.  He turned to Ruth and McClintock.  “You two ... both of you!  But for you I couldn’t have done it.  If only you knew what this means to me!”

“We do, lad,” replied McClintock, gravely.  The youth of them!  And what was he going to do when they left his island?  What would Donald McClintock be doing with himself, when youth left the island, never more to return?

Ruth was thrilling with joy.  Every drop of blood in her body glowed and expanded.  To go to Hoddy, to smother him with kisses and embraces in this hour of triumph!  To save herself from committing the act—­the thought of which was positive hypnotism—­she began the native dance.  Spurlock (himself verging upon the hysterical) welcomed the diversion.  He seized a tray, squatted on the floor, and imitated the tom-tom.  It was a mad half-hour.