When she stole out to him a moment later, he was loitering casually in the vicinity of a little shed where driftwood was kept. The Rev. Needham always made a point of talking about the rare quality of surf-wood blazes. The Rev. Needham had constructed this shed also with his own hands, just as he had constructed the remarkable rustic bench; only the shed had taken another summer, of course. This shed was really a Beachcrest institution; so was likewise the perennial lugging up of driftwood for storage therein recognized to be an almost religious adjunct of Point life. There was an informal rule—of ancient standing, playfully enough conceived, and of course playfully laid down—that no one should come in from the beach without at least one piece of driftwood. Much preferably, of course, a respectable, staggering armful. The rule was wholly playful; and yet, should several days pass with no contribution at all to the shed, Mrs. Needham and the girls would be troubled, and perhaps even a trifle frightened, to behold the minister himself tottering in with a colossal load. He would cast reproachful glances their way. And it would sometimes be a long while before he regained any sort of serenity. Yet it was a favourite maxim with the Rev. Needham that they came up here to the cottage for sheer relaxation and amusement.
Leslie had selected from the shed a smooth splinter, once part of a ship's spar. He had taken out his knife and was busy whittling. And he kept at this self-imposed task quite doggedly, seeming to find in it a certain sanctuary. His eyes scrupulously followed the slashings of the blade. Thus they avoided hers—for the most part without too deliberately seeming to do so. Louise was herself dimly grateful for the distraction.
"What do you think I found in Frankfort this morning?" she demanded, trying to smile with something of the old bewitchment. The historical novel was clasped behind her. She had certainly not meant to show it to him; yet here it was.
"I give up," he replied, accentuating the final word with a particularly telling stroke on the spar splinter.
Then she drew the book slowly round into sight and half extended it, as though it were an offering that might effect a return, somehow, to that golden relationship which Lynndal's coming had broken off.
"A book?" He went on whittling.
"You haven't even read the title!" she cried, half pleadingly.
"Something new?"
"Why, Les...."
Glancing back at the book, he merely muttered: "Oh."