"I promise to be very gentle," she said; and the music of that low,
caressing voice thrilled my very heart. "I think," she continued, "that
Mr. Ford looks very tired, Lance, pale and worn. We must take great care
of him."

"That we will," was the hearty reply.

Great Heaven! was it a murderess standing there, with that sweet look of
compassion on her beautiful face? Could this woman, who looked pitifully
on me, a grown man, drown a little child in the deep sea? Were those
lips, littering kindly words of welcome, the same that had cried in mad
despair, "Oh, Heaven! if I dare--if I dare?" I could have killed myself
for the base suspicion. Yet it was most surely she!

I stooped to pick up the white hawthorn she had dropped. She took it
from me with the sweetest smile, and Lance stood by, looking on with an
air of proud proprietorship that would have been amusing if it had not
been so unutterably pitiful.

While my brain and mind were still chaos--a whirl of thought and
emotion--the second dinner-bell rang. I offered her my arm, but I could
not refrain from a shudder as her white hand touched it. When I saw that
hand last it was most assuredly dropping the little burden into the sea.
Lance looked at us most ruefully, so that she laughed and said:

"Come with us, Lance."

She laid her other hand on his arm, and we all three walked into the
dining-room together.