The deep stillness, after that roar of steamers, trains, and tourists,
held something that thrilled, for as we lay round the fire there was
no sound but the faint sighing of the pines and the soft lapping of
the waves along the shore and against the sides of the boat in the
lagoon. The ghostly outline of her white sails was just visible
through the trees, idly rocking to and fro in her calm anchorage,
her sheets flapping gently against the mast. Beyond lay the dim blue
shapes of other islands floating in the night, and from all the great
spaces about us came the murmur of the sea and the soft breathing of
great woods. The odours of the wilderness--smells of wind and earth,
of trees and water, clean, vigorous, and mighty--were the true odours
of a virgin world unspoilt by men, more penetrating and more subtly
intoxicating than any other perfume in the whole world. Oh!--and
dangerously strong, too, no doubt, for some natures! “Ahhh!” breathed out the clergyman after supper, with an indescribable
gesture of satisfaction and relief. “Here there is freedom, and room
for body and mind to turn in. Here one can work and rest and play. Here
one can be alive and absorb something of the earth-forces that never
get within touching-distance in the cities. By George, I shall make a
permanent camp here and come when it is time to die!”

The good man was merely giving vent to his delight at being under
canvas. He said the same thing every year, and he said it often. But it
more or less expressed the superficial feelings of us all. And when, a
little later, he turned to compliment his wife on the fried potatoes,
and discovered that she was snoring, with her back against a tree,
he grunted with content at the sight and put a ground-sheet over her
feet, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to fall
asleep after dinner, and then moved back to his own corner, smoking his
pipe with great satisfaction. And I, smoking mine too, lay and fought against the most delicious
sleep imaginable, while my eyes wandered from the fire to the stars
peeping through the branches, and then back again to the group about
me. The Rev. Timothy soon let his pipe go out, and succumbed as his
wife had done, for he had worked hard and eaten well. Sangree, also
smoking, leaned against a tree with his gaze fixed on the girl, a
depth of yearning in his face that he could not hide, and that really
distressed me for him. And Joan herself, with wide staring eyes, alert,
full of the new forces of the place, evidently keyed up by the magic of
finding herself among all the things her soul recognised as “home,” sat
rigid by the fire, her thoughts roaming through the spaces, the blood
stirring about her heart. She was as unconscious of the Canadian’s gaze
as she was that her parents both slept. She looked to me more like a
tree, or something that had grown out of the island, than a living
girl of the century; and when I spoke across to her in a whisper and
suggested a tour of investigation, she started and looked up at me as
though she heard a voice in her dreams. Sangree leaped up and joined us, and without waking the others we three
went over the ridge of the island and made our way down to the shore
behind. The water lay like a lake before us still coloured by the
sunset. The air was keen and scented, wafting the smell of the wooded
islands that hung about us in the darkening air. Very small waves
tumbled softly on the sand. The sea was sown with stars, and everywhere
breathed and pulsed the beauty of the northern summer night. I confess
I speedily lost consciousness of the human presences beside me, and I
have little doubt Joan did too. Only Sangree felt otherwise, I suppose
for presently we heard him sighing; and I can well imagine that he
absorbed the whole wonder and passion of the scene into his aching
heart, to swell the pain there that was more searching even than the
pain at the sight of such matchless and incomprehensible beauty. The splash of a fish jumping broke the spell. “I wish we had the canoe now,” remarked Joan; “we could paddle out to
the other islands.”

“Of course,” I said; “wait here and I’ll go across for it,” and was
turning to feel my way back through the darkness when she stopped me in
a voice that meant what it said. “No; Mr. Sangree will get it. We will wait here and cooee to guide him.”

The Canadian was off in a moment, for she had only to hint of her
wishes and he obeyed. “Keep out from shore in case of rocks,” I cried out as he went, “and
turn to the right out of the lagoon. That’s the shortest way round by
the map.”

My voice travelled across the still waters and woke echoes in the
distant islands that came back to us like people calling out of space. It was only thirty or forty yards over the ridge and down the other
side to the lagoon where the boats lay, but it was a good mile to coast
round the shore in the dark to where we stood and waited. We heard him
stumbling away among the boulders, and then the sounds suddenly ceased
as he topped the ridge and went down past the fire on the other side. “I didn’t want to be left alone with him” the girl said presently in a
low voice. “I’m always afraid he’s going to say or do something----”
She hesitated a moment, looking quickly over her shoulder towards the
ridge where he had just disappeared--“something that might lead to
unpleasantness.”

She stopped abruptly. “_You_ frightened, Joan!” I exclaimed, with genuine surprise. “This is
a new light on your wicked character. I thought the human being who
could frighten you did not exist.” Then I suddenly realised she was
talking seriously--looking to me for help of some kind--and at once I
dropped the teasing attitude. “He’s very far gone, I think, Joan,” I added gravely. “You must be kind
to him, whatever else you may feel. He’s exceedingly fond of you.”

“I know, but I can’t help it,” she whispered, lest her voice should
carry in the stillness; “there’s something about him that--that makes
me feel creepy and half afraid.”

“But, poor man, it’s not his fault if he is delicate and sometimes
looks like death,” I laughed gently, by way of defending what I felt to
be a very innocent member of my sex. “Oh, but it’s not that I mean,” she answered quickly; “it’s something
I feel about him, something in his soul, something he hardly knows
himself, but that may come out if we are much together. It draws me, I
feel, tremendously. It stirs what is wild in me--deep down--oh, very
deep down,--yet at the same time makes me feel afraid.”

“I suppose his thoughts are always playing about you,” I said, “but
he’s nice-minded and----”

“Yes, yes,” she interrupted impatiently, “I can trust myself absolutely
with him. He’s gentle and singularly pure-minded. But there’s something
else that----” She stopped again sharply to listen. Then she came up
close beside me in the darkness, whispering--

“You know, Mr. Hubbard, sometimes my intuitions warn me a little too
strongly to be ignored.