"She knows, then, as little about your—your success—or almost as little, as I do?" asked the Commandant, quaintly.
Vashti broke into a gay little laugh. "But I am going to tell her now," she answered, rising—"and that is where I want you to help me. She has no idea at all that I am here, and I want—that is my little plan—to look in upon her before I make myself known. I want to see Ruth—my own Ruth—moving about her house; to feed my eyes on her good face, and learn if it has changed as I have tried to picture it changing; to know her as she has been during these years, not as she will be when we have kissed and I have told her.... I would steal upon her children, too, and watch them.... It is wonderful to think of Ruth's children!"
She sprang on to the crumbling wall, and stood erect there, shading her eyes, gazing towards Saaron Island, where the forenoon sun flashed upon the beaches and upon the roof of one small farm, half hidden in a fold of the hills. The Commandant put out a hand to steady her, for her perch was rickety and almost overhung the sea.
"Ruth is there!... To think of her so happy there—to see her, almost! Oh, sir—but if you could understand that the nearer I have travelled back, the more foolish my jealousy has seemed to grow, with every fear, every doubt!"
"Miss Vashti"—the Commandant spoke seriously, still with his arm stretched out ready to grip her by the skirt if she should over-balance herself or the treacherous wall give way—"I am glad, for your sister's sake, you have come; but I must warn you that all is not right on Saaron Island."
She turned slowly, and looked down upon him there from her altitude.
"What is not right?" she asked; and, while he hesitated, "You are not telling me that her letters have hidden anything?"
"No."
"Is it illness, then? Has anything happened to the children?"
"No," he answered again, and without more ado he told her the news he had heard from Mrs. Banfield.