She stopped and he, stooping, caught a gleam of moisture where the moonlight touched her cheek.  He put his arm about her waist.

“Don’t, dear,” he said, hastily.  “I’m sorry.  Forgive me, will you?  Of course you’re dead right and I’ve been talking like a jackass.  I’ll behave, honest I will. . . .  But what are we going to do?  I won’t give you up, you know, no matter if every spirit control in—­in wherever they come from orders me to.”

She smiled.  “Of course we’re not going to give each other up,” she declared.  “As for what we’re going to do, I don’t know.  I suppose there is nothing to do for the present except to wait and—­and hope father may change his mind.  That’s all, isn’t it?”

He shook his head.  “Waiting is a pretty slow game,” he said.  “I wonder, if I pretended to fall in love with Marietta Hoag, if those Chinese spooks of hers would send word to Cap’n Jeth that I was really a fairly decent citizen.  Courting Marietta would be hard medicine to take, but if it worked a cure we might try it.  What do you think?”

“I should be afraid that the remedy might be worse than the disease.  Once in Marietta’s clutches how would you get away?”

“Oh, that would be easy.  I’d have Doctor Powers swear that I had been suffering from temporary softening of the brain and wasn’t accountable for what I’d been doing.”

“She might not believe it.”

“Maybe not, but everybody else would.  Nothing milder than softening of the brain would account for a fellow’s falling in love with Marietta Hoag.”

A little later, as they were parting, she said, “Nelson, you’re an awfully dear fellow to be so thoughtful and forbearing and—­and patient.  Sometimes I think I shouldn’t let you wait for me any longer.”

“Let me!  How are you going to stop me?  Of course I’ll wait for you.  You’re the only thing worth waiting for in the world.  Don’t you know that?”

“I know you think so.  But, oh, dear, it seems sometimes as if there never would be any end to the waiting, and as if I had no right to ask—­”

“There, there!  Don’t you begin talking about rights.  There’s going to be an end and the right kind of end.  No Chinese spooks are going to keep us apart, my girl, not if I can help it.”

“I know.  But can you help it? . . .  I must go now.  Yes, I must, or father will wonder where I am and begin looking for me.  He thinks I am over at Martha Phipps’, you know.  Good-night, dear.”

“Good-night, girlie.  Don’t worry, it’s coming out all right for us, I’m sure of it.  This new job of mine is the first step in that direction.  There!  Kiss me and run along.  Good-night.”

They kissed and parted, Lulie to hasten back along the path to the light and Nelson to stride off in the opposite direction toward South Wellmouth.  Neither of them saw two figures which had, the moment before, appeared upon the summit of the knoll about thirty yards from the edge of the bluff and directly behind them.  But the pair on the knoll saw them.