He
was staring at Joan, and as he stared the change ran over it like a
shadow and was gone. I started in spite of myself, for something oddly
concentrated, potent, collected, had come into the expression usually so
scattered and feeble. But it was all swift as a passing meteor, and when
I looked a second time his face was normal and he was looking among the
trees. And Joan, luckily, had not observed him, her head being bowed and her
eyes tightly closed while her father prayed. "The girl has a vivid imagination indeed," I thought, half laughing, as
I lit the lanterns, "if her thoughts can put a glamour upon mine in this
way"; and yet somehow, when we said good-night, I took occasion to give
her a few vigorous words of encouragement, and went to her tent to make
sure I could find it quickly in the night in case anything happened. In
her quick way the girl understood and thanked me, and the last thing I
heard as I moved off to the men's quarters was Mrs. Maloney crying that
there were beetles in her tent, and Joan's laughter as she went to help
her turn them out. Half an hour later the island was silent as the grave, but for the
mournful voices of the wind as it sighed up from the sea. Like white
sentries stood the three tents of the men on one side of the ridge, and
on the other side, half hidden by some birches, whose leaves just
shivered as the breeze caught them, the women's tents, patches of
ghostly grey, gathered more closely together for mutual shelter and
protection. Something like fifty yards of broken ground, grey rock, moss
and lichen, lay between, and over all lay the curtain of the night and
the great whispering winds from the forests of Scandinavia. And the very last thing, just before floating away on that mighty wave
that carries one so softly off into the deeps of forgetfulness, I again
heard the voice of John Silence as the train moved out of Victoria
Station; and by some subtle connection that met me on the very threshold
of consciousness there rose in my mind simultaneously the memory of the
girl's half-given confidence, and of her distress. As by some wizardry
of approaching dreams they seemed in that instant to be related; but
before I could analyse the why and the wherefore, both sank away out of
sight again, and I was off beyond recall. "Unless you should send for me sooner." II

Whether Mrs. Maloney's tent door opened south or east I think she never
discovered, for it is quite certain she always slept with the flap
tightly fastened; I only know that my own little "five by seven, all
silk" faced due east, because next morning the sun, pouring in as only
the wilderness sun knows how to pour, woke me early, and a moment later,
with a short run over soft moss and a flying dive from the granite
ledge, I was swimming in the most sparkling water imaginable. It was barely four o'clock, and the sun came down a long vista of blue
islands that led out to the open sea and Finland. Nearer by rose the
wooded domes of our own property, still capped and wreathed with smoky
trails of fast-melting mist, and looking as fresh as though it was the
morning of Mrs. Maloney's Sixth Day and they had just issued, clean and
brilliant, from the hands of the great Architect. In the open spaces the ground was drenched with dew, and from the sea a
cool salt wind stole in among the trees and set the branches trembling
in an atmosphere of shimmering silver. The tents shone white where the
sun caught them in patches. Below lay the lagoon, still dreaming of the
summer night; in the open the fish were jumping busily, sending musical
ripples towards the shore; and in the air hung the magic of
dawn--silent, incommunicable. I lit the fire, so that an hour later the clergyman should find good
ashes to stir his porridge over, and then set forth upon an examination
of the island, but hardly had I gone a dozen yards when I saw a figure
standing a little in front of me where the sunlight fell in a pool among
the trees. It was Joan. She had already been up an hour, she told me, and had
bathed before the last stars had left the sky. I saw at once that the
new spirit of this solitary region had entered into her, banishing the
fears of the night, for her face was like the face of a happy denizen of
the wilderness, and her eyes stainless and shining. Her feet were bare,
and drops of dew she had shaken from the branches hung in her
loose-flying hair. Obviously she had come into her own. "I've been all over the island," she announced laughingly, "and there
are two things wanting." "You're a good judge, Joan. What are they?" "There's no animal life, and there's no--water." "They go together," I said. "Animals don't bother with a rock like this
unless there's a spring on it." And as she led me from place to place, happy and excited, leaping
adroitly from rock to rock, I was glad to note that my first impressions
were correct. She made no reference to our conversation of the night
before. The new spirit had driven out the old. There was no room in her
heart for fear or anxiety, and Nature had everything her own way. The island, we found, was some three-quarters of a mile from point to
point, built in a circle, or wide horseshoe, with an opening of twenty
feet at the mouth of the lagoon. Pine-trees grew thickly all over, but
here and there were patches of silver birch, scrub oak, and
considerable colonies of wild raspberry and gooseberry bushes. The two
ends of the horseshoe formed bare slabs of smooth granite running into
the sea and forming dangerous reefs just below the surface, but the rest
of the island rose in a forty-foot ridge and sloped down steeply to the
sea on either side, being nowhere more than a hundred yards wide. The outer shore-line was much indented with numberless coves and bays
and sandy beaches, with here and there caves and precipitous little
cliffs against which the sea broke in spray and thunder. But the inner
shore, the shore of the lagoon, was low and regular, and so well
protected by the wall of trees along the ridge that no storm could ever
send more than a passing ripple along its sandy marges. Eternal shelter
reigned there. On one of the other islands, a few hundred yards away--for the rest of
the party slept late this first morning, and we took to the canoe--we
discovered a spring of fresh water untainted by the brackish flavour of
the Baltic, and having thus solved the most important problem of the
Camp, we next proceeded to deal with the second--fish. And in half an
hour we reeled in and turned homewards, for we had no means of storage,
and to clean more fish than may be stored or eaten in a day is no wise
occupation for experienced campers. And as we landed towards six o'clock we heard the clergyman singing as
usual and saw his wife and Sangree shaking out their blankets in the
sun, and dressed in a fashion that finally dispelled all memories of
streets and civilisation.