As he turned, however, his thoughts were of something quite different and distant. He saw that black dot move down aslant the shining channel, lose all apparent energy in the distance, and, dead as a bit of driftwood, float past the foot of the island. But in imagination, clearer than a spyglass, he pictured Tony swimming on, the sharp catch of his breath, the labor of his great muscles against the tide, and wondered, as the dark mote lessened on the water, what thoughts it might confine. Only plans, perhaps, for his own unruly future; the sailor, consistent to the last, had played upon them all; now he would but change the scene and the persons. And still—“If things had been different,” thought Miles, “if we’d started in together, somehow—” The head drifted out of the paler surfaces, blurred into the dark, jagged margin of the further shore, entered the inverted evergreen forest, and, crossing the white streak where a birch trunk gleamed on the mirror, was lost in safety. And with it, Miles felt some piece of his old self departing.
When he turned away, at last, he found the men dispersing along the shore toward Alward’s, and saw, through a gap in the firs, Anna and the teamster climbing the distant field slowly, with now and then a pause or gesture, like people in earnest talk. He was hardly at the foot of the hill, when they had reached the house and gone indoors. He followed, wondering why they had not waited. From between the hackmatacks he could hear three voices contending, then two, and as his foot grated on the doorstep, none. In the kitchen Ella and the teamster met him with a guilty silence, while overhead a light step came and went, and as if with a lighter spirit, the girl hummed little intervals of song. When these sounds returned downstairs, Ella faced about with an air that was almost gay.
“Now,” she cried, “for breakfast!”
All four sat down by the sunny window. From the outset, Miles found the meal bewildering. Plainly his companions had shared some secret. They glanced and laughed inconsequently; they talked of Tony and the escape, with a curious exhilaration, and more curious gaps of silence; they gave to this meagre breakfast a sense of banqueting, but banqueting under the edge of some unusual event, soon to fall. The girl’s eyes, her every word and movement, were as lamps and music to a feast. And Habakkuk, dipping and swerving his weather-vane countenance, was flushed with her praises like a minstrel.
“All the rest scairt, and she run slap into the lighthouse!” he was repeating, when she cut him short.
“Come on,” she laughed, and, rising, ended their brief revel. They trooped after her to the kitchen, where she caught up a bundle from the floor. Hab wrested it from her arms, with the bow and flourish of a country dancer, and still laughing as in a game, she turned to Ella, and held out both hands.
“Good-by,” she said.
“I won’t say it!” rebelled the other violently, but next instant had clasped her in a bear-like hug. “Oh, my old precious, good-by! Yes, you’re right, you’re right!”
The pair, still embracing, moved clumsily out through the doorway. Then Ella released her, crying between laughter and distress,—
“But you’ll be back!” She wrung the girl’s hand. “You’ll come back like old Douglas, time they give him the gold cane and the speech—”