The remark startled him. "Telly," he said soberly, "do not ever think of such a thing. Would you, whose heart is so loving and tender, burden all those who know you with a lifelong sorrow?"
"No, no, not that way," she answered quickly, "only if those who love me were taken I should want to follow them; that is all. Please forget I said it." Then she told him her own brief history, and at last, after much coaxing, a little of the one sorrow of her life.
"Now I know," he said, "why you avoided speaking about the picture of the wreck the first time I came here." Then in a moment he added, "Telly, I want you to give it to me and let me take it away. I want it for two reasons: one is, it gave me the first hint of your life's history. And then I do not want you to look at it any more."
"You may have it," she answered, smiling sadly; "it was foolish of me to paint it in the first place, and I wish I never had."
When the sun was low and they were ready to return he said, "Promise me, sweetheart, that you will try to forget all of your past that is sad, and think only of us who love you, and to whom your life is a blessing."
That evening he noticed Uncle Terry occasionally watched her with wistful eyes, and, as on the evening before, both he and Aunt Lissy retired early.
"They wish me well," Albert thought, and with gratitude. He had even more reason for it when the next day Uncle Terry proposed that Telly should drive to the head of the island in his place.
"I'm sorry ye must leave us, Mr. Page," he said, when Albert was ready to bid the old folks good-by. "I wish ye could stay longer; but cum again soon, an' remember, our latch-string's allus out fer ye."
When the old carryall had made half its daily journey, Albert pointed to a low rock and said, "There is a spot I shall always be glad to see, for it was there Uncle Terry first found me."
Telly made no answer; in fact she had said but little since they started, and soon the hardest part of life and living, that of separating from those who seem near and dear to us, was drawing near. When they reached the little landing, no one else was there. No house was in sight of it, and the solitude was broken only by the tide that softly caressed the barnacled piles of the wharf and the weed-covered rocks on either side. No boat was visible adown the wide reach that separates Southport Island from the mainland, and up it came a light sea breeze that barely rippled the flowing tide and whispered through the brown and scarlet leaved thicket back of them. Over all shone the hazy sunlight of October. It is likely that a touch of regret for the sacrifice she had made came to Telly as she stood listening and hoping that the boat which was due would be late in coming, for a look of sadness came over her face, and a more than usually plaintive appeal in her expressive eyes. "I am sorry you are going," she said; "it is so lonesome here, and it will seem more so now." Then as if that was a confession he might think unmaidenly, she added, "I dread to have the summer end, for when winter comes, the rocks all around seem like so many tombstones."