Oh yes, you needn’t tell me again that it’s
difficult to distinguish between fancy and intuition. I know all that. But I also know that there’s something deep down in that man’s soul
that calls to something deep down in mine. And at present it frightens
me. Because I cannot make out what it is; and I know, I _know_, he’ll
do something some day that--that will shake my life to the very
bottom.” She laughed a little at the strangeness of her own description. I turned to look at her more closely, but the darkness was too great to
show her face. There was an intensity, almost of suppressed passion, in
her voice that took me completely by surprise. “Nonsense, Joan,” I said, a little severely; “you know him well. He’s
been with your father for months now.”

“But that was in London; and up here it’s different--I mean, I feel
that it may be different. Life in a place like this blows away the
restraints of the artificial life at home. I know, oh, I know what I’m
saying. I feel all untied in a place like this; the rigidity of one’s
nature begins to melt and flow. Surely _you_ must understand what I
mean!”

“Of course I understand,” I replied, yet not wishing to encourage her
in her present line of thought, “and it’s a grand experience--for a
short time. But you’re overtired to-night, Joan, like the rest of us. A few days in this air will set you above all fears of the kind you
mention.”

Then, after a moment’s silence, I added, feeling I should estrange her
confidence altogether if I blundered any more and treated her like a
child--

“I think, perhaps, the true explanation is that you pity him for loving
you, and at the same time you feel the repulsion of the healthy,
vigorous animal for what is weak and timid. If he came up boldly and
took you by the throat and shouted that he would force you to love
him--well, then you would feel no fear at all. You would know exactly
how to deal with him. Isn’t it, perhaps, something of that kind?”

The girl made no reply, and when I took her hand I felt that it
trembled a little and was cold. “It’s not his love that I’m afraid of,” she said hurriedly, for at this
moment we heard the dip of a paddle in the water, “it’s something in
his very soul that terrifies me in a way I have never been terrified
before,--yet fascinates me. In town I was hardly conscious of his
presence. But the moment we got away from civilisation, it began to
come. He seems so--so _real_ up here. I dread being alone with him. It
makes me feel that something must burst and tear its way out--that he
would do something--or I should do something--I don’t know exactly what
I mean, probably,--but that I should let myself go and scream----”

“Joan!”

“Don’t be alarmed,” she laughed shortly; “I shan’t do anything silly,
but I wanted to tell you my feelings in case I needed your help. When
I have intuitions as strong as this they are never wrong, only I don’t
know yet what it means exactly.”

“You must hold out for the month, at any rate,” I said in as
matter-of-fact a voice as I could manage, for her manner had somehow
changed my surprise to a subtle sense of alarm. “Sangree only stays the
month, you know. And, anyhow, you are such an odd creature yourself
that you should feel generously towards other odd creatures,” I ended
lamely, with a forced laugh. She gave my hand a sudden pressure. “I’m glad I’ve told you at any
rate,” she said quickly under her breath, for the canoe was now gliding
up silently like a ghost to our feet, “and I’m glad you’re here too,”
she added as we moved down towards the water to meet it. I made Sangree change into the bows and got into the steering seat
myself, putting the girl between us so that I could watch them both by
keeping their outlines against the sea and stars. For the intuitions
of certain folk--women and children usually, I confess--I have always
felt a great respect that has more often than not been justified by
experience; and now the curious emotion stirred in me by the girl’s
words remained somewhat vividly in my consciousness. I explained it in
some measure by the fact that the girl, tired out by the fatigue of
many days’ travel, had suffered a vigorous reaction of some kind from
the strong, desolate scenery, and further, perhaps, that she had been
treated to my own experience of seeing the members of the party in a
new light--the Canadian, being partly a stranger, more vividly than the
rest of us. But, at the same time, I felt it was quite possible that
she had sensed some subtle link between his personality and her own,
some quality that she had hitherto ignored and that the routine of town
life had kept buried out of sight. The only thing that seemed difficult
to explain was the fear she had spoken of, and this I hoped the
wholesome effects of camp-life and exercise would sweep away naturally
in the course of time. We made the tour of the island without speaking. It was all too
beautiful for speech. The trees crowded down to the shore to hear us
pass. We saw their fine dark heads, bowed low with splendid dignity
to watch us, forgetting for a moment that the stars were caught in
the needled network of their hair. Against the sky in the west, where
still lingered the sunset gold, we saw the wild toss of the horizon,
shaggy with forest and cliff, gripping the heart like the motive in
a symphony, and sending the sense of beauty all a-shiver through the
mind--all these surrounding islands standing above the water like low
clouds, and like them seeming to post along silently into the engulfing
night. We heard the musical drip-drip of the paddle, and the little
wash of our waves on the shore, and then suddenly we found ourselves at
the opening of the lagoon again, having made the complete circuit of
our home. The Reverend Timothy had awakened from sleep and was singing to
himself; and the sound of his voice as we glided down the fifty yards
of enclosed water was pleasant to hear and undeniably wholesome. We saw
the glow of the fire up among the trees on the ridge, and his shadow
moving about as he threw on more wood. “There you are!” he called aloud. “Good again! Been setting the
night-lines, eh? Capital! And your mother’s still fast asleep, Joan.”

His cheery laugh floated across the water; he had not been in the least
disturbed by our absence, for old campers are not easily alarmed. “Now, remember,” he went on, after we had told our little tale of
travel by the fire, and Mrs. Maloney had asked for the fourth time
exactly where her tent was and whether the door faced east or south,
“every one takes their turn at cooking breakfast, and one of the men is
always out at sunrise to catch it first. Hubbard, I’ll toss you which
you do in the morning and which I do!” He lost the toss. “Then I’ll
catch it,” I said, laughing at his discomfiture, for I knew he loathed
stirring porridge. “And mind you don’t burn it as you did every blessed
time last year on the Volga,” I added by way of reminder.