"It's growing dark, but there's Dreamer's Rock and Bleak Head!"
"And, Jerry-Jo," whispered Priscilla, "there's Lone Tree Island, don't you see? Your boat is coming around into the Channel. Please tell me—where he is, Jerry-Jo——"
Priscilla realized he was going fast, and the secret suddenly gripped her with strange power. She must have it; she must know!
"Please, Jerry-Jo, tell me where he is. I have wanted so to know! Listen! Can you not hear—the dear old sounds, the pattering of the soft little waves that the ice has let go free? There's the farm, the woods——" But Jerry-Jo was struggling to rise; his black eyes wide and straining, his thin arms outstretched.
"No!" he moaned hoarsely, and already he seemed far away. "I can't make the Channel. I'm headed for the Secret Portage and the Big Bay."
"Jerry-Jo! oh! tell me, where is he? Where is he?"
But Priscilla knew it was too late. She bent and listened at the still breast that was holding the secret close from her. Then, with a sense of having been baffled, defeated, and cruelly cheated, she dropped her wet face in her hands for a moment before she went to do her last duty for Jerry-Jo.
CHAPTER XVIII
The following June Priscilla Glenn graduated. She and John Boswell grew quite merry over the event.