To his discomfiture she did not solicit further information. After
a pause he continued, still more archly:

"Do you like HIM, Mag?"

"I think he's a perfect gentleman," she said calmly.

He turned his eyes quickly from the glowing fire to her face. The
cheek that had been resting against his own was as cool as the
night wind that came through the open door, and the whole face was
as fixed and tranquil as the upper stars.


V.


For a year the tide had ebbed and flowed on the Dedlow Marsh
unheeded before the sealed and sightless windows of the
"Kingfisher's Nest." Since the young birds had flown to Logport,
even the Indian caretakers had abandoned the piled dwelling for
their old nomadic haunts in the "bresh." The high spring tide had
again made its annual visit to the little cemetery of drift-wood,
and, as if recognizing another wreck in the deserted home, had hung
a few memorial offerings on the blackened piles, softly laid a
garland of grayish drift before it, and then sobbed itself out in
the salt grass.

From time to time the faint echoes of the Culpeppers' life at
Logport reached the upland, and the few neighbors who had only
known them by hearsay shook their heads over the extravagance they