his remaining oar, and with it kept the head to the wind.  “We must go back,” he said, panting.  “I know,” said she.  The windstorm was fairly upon them; and, in spite of all his efforts, an occasional wave would get upon the beam and spill its frothing crest into the boat.  Pinckney almost doubted whether it would float until it reached the shore; but Miss Warfield did not seem in the least disturbed, and spoke without a tremor in her voice.  The lightning had stopped now, and he could not see her.

He had miscalculated the force of the wind and waves, however; for in a very minutes they were driven broadside back upon the beach, almost at the same place from which they had started.  Miss War-field sprang out quickly, and he after, just as a wave turned the dory bottom upward on the stones.

“They will soon send for us,” he said; and stepping painfully up the shore, he occupied himself with spreading her shawl in a sheltered spot for them to wait in.  She sat down, and he beside her.  He was very wet, and she made him put some of the shawl over himself.  The quick summer storm had passed now, with only a few big drops of rain; and the moon was breaking out fitfully through veils of driving clouds and their storm-scud.  By its light he looked at her, and their eyes met.  Pinckney groaned aloud, and stood up.  “Would that they would never come; would God that we could—­”

“We can not,” said she, softly, in a voice that he had never heard from her before—­a voice with tears in it; and the man threw himself down at her feet, inarticulate, maddened.  Then, with a great effort at control, not touching her, but looking straight into her eyes, he said, in blunt, low speech:  “Miss Warfield, I love you—­do you know it?”

Her head sank slowly down; but she answered, very low, but clearly, yes.  Then their eyes met again; and, by some common impulse, they rose and walked apart.  After a few steps, he stopped, being lame, and leaned against the cliff; but she went on until her dark figure was blended with the shadows of the crags.

So, when the boat came back, its sail silvered by the moonlight, they saw it, and, coming down, they met again; but only as the party were landing on the beach.  Several of the party had come back; and Mr. Breeze, who was among them, was full of explanation how he had missed the first boat and barely caught the second, supposing that his fiancee was in the first.  An awkward accident, but easily explained by Pinckney, with the sprain in his ankle; and, indeed, the others were too full of excuses for having forgotten them to inquire into the causes of their absence together.

Pinckney went to his room, and had a night of delirium.  Toward morning, his troubled wakefulness ended, and he fell into a dream.  He dreamed that in the centre of the world was one green bower, beneath a blossoming tree, and he and Miss Warfield were there.  And the outer world was being destroyed, one sphere by fire and the other by flood, and there was only this bower left.  But they could not stay there, or the tree would die.  So they went away, he to the one side and she to the other, and the ruins of the world fell upon them, and they saw each other no more.