wrack of flying clouds, scurrying one after the other, veiling the
stars--and the moon was hidden--and hidden too was the sudden whiteness
of Helena's face. She knew what he had to say, knew it before she had
come to him--and yet she was there--and she had come resolutely
enough--only now she was afraid.

"I would rather walk a little, I think," she said. "Here where--where I
can be within call. My absence last night seems to have made the
Patriarch very uneasy, you know, and--and--let us just walk up and down
here beneath the maples in front of the cottage."

How heavy upon the air lay the fragrance of the flowers; how still the
night was, save for the constant muffled boom of the breaking surf!--for
a moment an almost ungovernable impulse swept upon her to make some
excuse, anything, no matter how wild, a sudden faintness, anything, and
run from him back into the cottage. And then she tried to think, think
in a desperate sort of way of some subject of conversation that she
might introduce that would stave off, postpone, defer the words that she
knew were even now on his lips--nothing--she could think of
nothing--only that she might have let the Flopper have his way, have let
him tell Thornton that she had gone to bed with--the pip. The _pip_! She
could have screamed out hysterically as the word flashed all unbidden
upon her--it stood for a very great deal that word--her world of the
years of yesterday. Could she never get away from that world; was it too
late--already! Could she, even with all the earnestness, all the
yearning that filled her soul, ever live it down, ever be what Naida
Thornton had called her that night--a good woman! Could she--

Thornton was speaking now--how strange that she would have done
anything, given anything to prevent his speaking--and done anything,