“Erastus!  Ras!” she called.  “Hello, Ras!  Hold that telegram.  Don’t send it yet.  Do you hear?”

Mr. Beebe’s voice expressed his surprise.  “Why, yes, Martha,” he said, “I hear.  But I don’t know.  You see, Mr. Bangs, he sent a note along with the telegram sayin’ he wanted it rushed.”

“Never mind.  You hold it until you hear from me again—­or from him.  Yes, I’ll take all the responsibility.  Erastus Beebe, don’t you send that telegram.”

She hung up the receiver and hurried to the outer door.  Galusha was nowhere in sight.  Then she remembered that Primmie had said he had gone toward the lighthouse.  She threw a knitted scarf over her shoulders, seized an umbrella from the rack—­for the walk showed broad splashes where drops of rain had fallen—­and started in search of him.  She had no definite plan.  She was acting as entirely upon impulse as Cabot had acted in seeking their recent interview; but of one thing she was determined—­he should not wreck his career if she, in any way, could prevent it.

She reached the gate of the government property, but she did not open it.  She was certain he would not be in the light keeper’s cottage; she seemed to have an intuition as to where he was, and, turning, followed the path along the edge of the bluff.  She followed it for perhaps three hundred yards, then she saw him.  He was sitting upon a knoll, his hands clasped about his knees.  The early dusk of the gloomy afternoon was rapidly closing in, the raindrops were falling more thickly, but he did not seem to realize these facts, or, if he did, to care.  He sat there, a huddled little bundle of misery, and her heart went out to him.

He did not hear her approach.  She came and stood beside him.

“Mr. Bangs,” she said.

Then he looked up, saw her, and scrambled to his feet.

“Why—­why, Miss Martha!” he exclaimed.  “I did not see you—­ah—­ hear you, I mean.  What is it?  Is anything wrong?”

She nodded.  She found it very hard to speak and, when she did do so, her voice was shaky.

“Yes,” she said, “there is.  Somethin’ very wrong.  Why did you telegraph the Institute folks that you wouldn’t accept their offer? . . .  Oh, I found it out.  Ras Beebe couldn’t get one word in your message and he read it to me over the ’phone.  But that doesn’t matter.  That doesn’t count.  Why did you refuse, Mr. Bangs?”

He put his hand to his forehead.  “I—­I am sorry if it troubled you,” he said.  “I didn’t mean for you to know it—­ah—­yet.  I refused because—­well, because I did not care to accept.  The—­the whole thing did not appeal to me, somehow.  I have lost interest in it—­ah—­quite.  Dear me, yes—­quite.”

“Lost interest!  In Egypt?  In such a wonderful chance as this gives you?  Oh, you can’t!  You mustn’t!”

He sighed and then smiled.  “It does seem queer, doesn’t it?” he admitted.  “Yet it is quite true.  I have lost interest.  I don’t seem to care even for Egypt.  Now that is very odd.”