mistaken way of putting it. Had she thought she had lost Latimer
and his love, she would have discovered that, so far from being
free, she was bound hand and foot and heart and soul.

But she did not know that, and Latimer did not know that.

Meanwhile, from the branch of the tree in the sheltered, secret
hiding-place that overlooked the ocean, the sailorman kept watch.
The sun had blistered him, the storms had buffeted him, the snow
had frozen upon his shoulders. But his loyalty never relaxed. He
spun to the north, he spun to the south, and so rapidly did he
scan the surrounding landscape that no one could hope to creep
upon him unawares. Nor, indeed, did any one attempt to do so.
Once a fox stole into the secret hiding-place, but the sailorman
flapped his oars and frightened him away. He was always
triumphant. To birds, to squirrels, to trespassing rabbits he was
a thing of terror. Once, when the air was still, an impertinent
crow perched on the very limb on which he stood, and with
scornful, disapproving eyes surveyed his white trousers, his blue
reefer, his red cheeks. But when the wind suddenly drove past
them the sailorman sprang into action and the crow screamed in
alarm and darted away. So, alone and with no one to come to his
relief, the sailorman stood his watch. About him the branches
bent with the snow, the icicles froze him into immobility, and in
the tree-tops strange groanings filled him with alarms. But
undaunted, month after month, alert and smiling, he waited the
return of the beautiful lady and of the tall young man who had
devoured her with such beseeching, unhappy eyes.

Latimer found that to love a woman like Helen Page as he loved