spiritless and pigeon-livered in his solitude and loneliness. The next
day he searched for her with his glass, and saw her playing with one
of the children on the beach,--a very picture of child or nymphlike
innocence. Perhaps it was because she was not "that kind of girl" that
she had attracted him. He laughed bitterly. Yes; that was very funny;
he, an escaped convict, drawn towards honest, simple innocence! Yet he
knew--he was positive--he had not thought of any ill when he spoke to
her. He took a singular, a ridiculous pride in and credit to himself for
that. He repeated it incessantly to himself. Then what made her angry?
Himself! The devil! Did he carry, then, the record of his past life
forever in his face--in his speech--in his manners? The thought made
him sullen. The next day he would not look towards the shore; it was
wonderful what excitement and satisfaction he got out of that strange
act of self-denial; it made the day seem full that had been so vacant
before; yet he could not tell why or wherefore. He felt injured, but he
rather liked it. Yet in the night he was struck with the idea that she
might have gone back to San Francisco, and he lay awake longing for
the morning light to satisfy him. Yet when the fog cleared, and from
a nearer point, behind a sand dune, he discovered, by the aid of his
glass, that she was seated on the sun-warmed sands combing out her long
hair like a mermaid, he immediately returned to the cabin, and that
morning looked no more that way. In the afternoon, there being no sails
in sight, he turned aside from the bay and walked westward towards the
ocean, halting only at the league-long line of foam which marked the
breaking Pacific surges. Here he was surprised to see a little child,
half-naked, following barefooted the creeping line of spume, or running
after the detached and quivering scraps of foam that chased each other
over the wet sand, and only a little further on, to come upon Cara
herself, sitting with her elbows on her knees and her round chin in her
hands, apparently gazing over the waste of waters before her. A sudden