The horrible stillness of the place seemed driving her mad.  The endless monotony of the waves rolling up on the beach was growing unendurable.  The wild waste of sparkling-waters, ending in the low horizon line, wearied her eyes like the sands of the desert.

“I shall lose all the little reason I ever had if I am kept in this howling desolation much longer,” she said, pressing her hands to her throbbing temples.  “Oh! to shut out this mocking sunshine—­to lose sight of this dreary waste, where no living thing comes!  Oh, to get away from that horrible sea!  If I could only die and end it all!  But I live on, and live on where others would be happier and find death.”

She sighed wearily, and looked across at the radiant western sky, gorgeous with the coming sunset.

“What did that woman mean?  Did she mean anything?  Yes, I am sure she did, and she has come here to help me to escape.  Oh, Heaven have pity, and grant me freedom once more!”

She clasped her hands and sat there like one out of herself, while the moments wore on.  Purple and gold made the western sky luminous with glory, and when the gorgeous flames were at their brightest, and the sea turning to a lake of blood-red fire, a little white boat, with a blue pennant flying, shot out of the red light and drifted close to the shore.

Mollie fixed her eyes on this tiny skiff—­why, she could not have told.  Boats passed and repassed often enough, but seldom so close to the shore.  The beauty of the little bark attracted her, nestling as it did like a white dove on the water, and that fairy azure banner flying.

A solitary figure sat in the boat, his face turned her way; but the distance was too great for her to distinguish that face.  A word in white letters she could see on the blue flag; but again the distance was too great for her to distinguish.  She sat and watched and watched, until the opening of the door startled her.  She turned round and saw Susan Sharpe—­this time alone.

“Look there!” said Mollie, obeying a sudden impulse; “did you ever see anything so pretty?”

The nurse looked—­bent her brows and looked again.  Her face flushed—­she caught her breath.

“Who is the man?” she asked, hurriedly, lowly.

“I don’t know,” in the same breathless way.  “He is watching here—­but the distance is so great.  Oh, nurse—­”

She did not finish the sentence, but with hands clasped and lips parted, stood looking imploringly in the woman’s face.

“Wait a minute,” said Mrs. Susan Sharpe; “there is no one on the watch this time, thank the Lord!  Mrs. Oleander’s down with the toothache.”

She left the room—­was absent in her own two or three minutes—­then returned with a pocket telescope in her hand.

“Try this,” she said, quietly; “it’s small, but it’s powerful.”

She put it in the girl’s hand.  Mollie turned eagerly to the window—­the boat and the man were near enough now.  The word on the blue flag was Hope; the face of the man was still toward her, true as the needle to the north star.  With the first look she recognized it.  A low cry of amaze, and she dropped the glass, and stood all trembling with the sudden joyful shock.