his usual ending, it chanced that I looked up and let my eyes wander
round the group assembled about the dying fire. And it certainly seemed
to me that Sangree's face underwent a sudden and visible alteration. He
was staring at Joan, and as he stared the change ran over it like a
shadow and was gone. I started in spite of myself, for something oddly
concentrated, potent, collected, had come into the expression usually so
scattered and feeble. But it was all swift as a passing meteor, and when
I looked a second time his face was normal and he was looking among the
trees.

And Joan, luckily, had not observed him, her head being bowed and her
eyes tightly closed while her father prayed.

"The girl has a vivid imagination indeed," I thought, half laughing, as
I lit the lanterns, "if her thoughts can put a glamour upon mine in this
way"; and yet somehow, when we said good-night, I took occasion to give
her a few vigorous words of encouragement, and went to her tent to make
sure I could find it quickly in the night in case anything happened. In
her quick way the girl understood and thanked me, and the last thing I
heard as I moved off to the men's quarters was Mrs. Maloney crying that
there were beetles in her tent, and Joan's laughter as she went to help
her turn them out.

Half an hour later the island was silent as the grave, but for the
mournful voices of the wind as it sighed up from the sea. Like white
sentries stood the three tents of the men on one side of the ridge, and
on the other side, half hidden by some birches, whose leaves just
shivered as the breeze caught them, the women's tents, patches of
ghostly grey, gathered more closely together for mutual shelter and
protection. Something like fifty yards of broken ground, grey rock, moss