SEVERING THE TIES
The next day seemed to Winn almost like preparing for a funeral.
"I wish you would go over to the gorge with me this afternoon," he said to Mona that morning, "I must leave here to-morrow, and I want to bid the spot good-by."
And she, busy among the sweet williams, pinks, and marigolds that were her daily care, felt her heart sink.
And Winn, believing it his last day on the island, went his way, first to the quarry that had been his everyday duty for almost three months. Only four men were retained, and those were to be kept at work until he returned, or until Jess ordered otherwise. To no one could he say his departure was final. Then he wandered about among the wharves that had so interested him the first day on the island, and spoke with the few fishermen busy there. All knew him, and each had a pleasant word and nod. He watched them at their work, salting the fish they had split and were packing, one upon another, in a large tank, or spreading cured ones on racks to dry, and packing up in bundles those that were dried. He sniffed the pungent odor and looked out seaward, where the fishing craft, with all sail set, were departing. Then he strolled inward to where the little steamer made landing. She had left for that day and her wharf was deserted. Winn thought that on her next trip he would be a passenger leaving the island for good. Strange to say, as he passed on he noticed with peculiar interest the sign, "Coffins and Caskets" on a small shop just back of a house. Then he followed the sandy shore of the inner harbor past an old, dismantled fishing smack, beached high and dry, on the stern of which the name "Nancy Jane" was still legible, and then on up to the tide mill. Here he paused again, looking into the dark interior where only the sills remained, and below them a space through which the tide ebbed. And he thought of the girl who had ended her life there.
Somehow, all that morning these sad reminders of life and death on the island seemed to thrust themselves before him. The mood they engendered was with him when that afternoon he, with Mona for companion, started for the gorge. And she was almost as silent as the old mill.
"I've been bidding good-by to the island all the morning," he said, when they reached the top of Norse Hill, "and I hate to go away."
"But you are coming back, aren't you?" she asked, with a note of pain.
"Oh, yes," he said cheerfully, "I hope so, but I can't tell. You know why I go, and my business here may be at its end. But if it is, I shall visit the island next summer, if I live.
