"She is n't back, yet."

"Then," said Mrs. Breen, "he really did expect rough weather."

"He must," returned Grace, in a guilty whisper.

"It's a pity," remarked her mother, "that you made them go."

"Yes." She rose, and, stretching herself far out of the window, searched
the inexorable expanse of sea. It had already darkened at the verge, and
the sails of some fishing-craft flecked a livid wall with their white,
but there was no small boat in sight.

"If anything happened to them," her mother continued, "I should feel
terribly for you."

"I should feel terribly for myself," Grace responded, with her eyes still
seaward.

"Where do you think they went?"

"I did n't ask," said the girl. "I wouldn't," she added, in devotion to
the whole truth.

"Well, it is all of the same piece," said Mrs. Breen. Grace did not ask
what the piece was. She remained staring at the dark wall across the sea,
and spiritually confronting her own responsibility, no atom of which she
rejected. She held herself in every way responsible,--for doubting that
poor young fellow's word, and then for forcing that reluctant creature to