Agatha sat in the launch while the doctor’s orders were carried out.  Little Simon was off getting the vehicles; Doctor Thayer had run up the dock to the village street on some errand, saying he would be back by the time the carriages were there; and Hand was walking up and down the dock, keeping a watchful eye on the launch.  James was lying in the sheltered corner of the boat, ominously quiet.  His eyes were closed, and his face had grown ghastly in his illness.  Tears came to Agatha’s eyes as she looked at him, seeing how much worse his condition was than when he had talked with her, almost happily, in the night.  She herself felt miserably tired and ill; and as she waited, she had the sensation one sometimes has in waiting for a train; that the waiting would go on for ever, would never end.

The weather changed, as the doctor had prophesied, and the rain ceased.  Fresh gusts of wind from the sea blew clouds of fog and mist inland, while the surface of the water turned from gray to green, from green to blue.  The wind, blowing against the receding tide, tossed the foam back toward the land in fantastic plumes.  Agatha, looking out over the sea, which now began to sparkle in the light, longed in her heart to take the return of the sunshine as an omen of good.  It warmed and cheered her, body and soul.

As her eyes turned from the sea to the village tossed up beyond its highest tides, she searched, though in vain, for some spot which she could identify with the memories of her childhood.  She must have seen Charlesport in some one of her numerous visits to Ilion as a child; but though she recalled vividly many of her early experiences, they were in no way suggestive of this tiny antiquarian village, or of the rocky hillside stretching off toward the horizon.  A narrow road wound athwart the hill, leading into the country beyond.  It was steep and rugged, and finally it curved over the distant fields.

But the old red house was the talisman that brought back to her mind the familiar picture.  She wondered if it lay over the hill beyond that rugged road.  She closed her eyes and saw the green fields, the mighty balm-of-gilead tree, the lilac bushes, and the dull red walls of the house standing back from the village street, not far from the white-steepled church.  She could see it all, plainly.  The thought came to her suddenly that it was home.  It was the first realization she had of old Hercules Thayer’s kindness.  It was Home for her who had else been homeless.  She hugged the thought in thankfulness.

“Now, Miss Agatha Redmond, if you will come—­”

The eternity had ended; and time, with its swift procession of hours and days, had begun again.

CHAPTER XII

SEEING THE RAINBOW

A few days on a yacht, with a calm sea and sun-cool weather, may be something like a century of bliss for a pair of lovers, if they happen to have taken the lucky hour.  The conventions of yacht life allow a companionship from dawn till dark, if they choose to have it; there is a limited amount of outside distraction; if the girl be an outdoor lass, she looks all the sweeter for the wind rumpling her hair; and on shipboard, if anywhere, mental resourcefulness and good temper achieve their full reward.