"Are you as strong as Tardif?" she asked, lingering and hesitating before she would trust herself to me.
"Almost, if not altogether," I answered gayly. "I'm strong enough to undertake to carry you without wetting the soles of your feet. Come, it is not more than half a dozen yards."
She was standing on the bench I had just left, looking down at me with the same vivid flush upon her cheeks and forehead, and with an uneasy expression in her eyes. Before she could speak again I put my arms round her, and lifted her down.
"You are quite as light as a feather," I said, laughing, as I carried her to the strip of moist and humid strand under the archway in the rocks. As I put her down I looked back to Tardif, and saw him regarding us with grave and sorrowful eyes.
"Adieu!" he cried; "I am going to look after my lobster-pots. God bless you both!"
He spoke the last words heartily; and we stood watching him as long as he was in sight. Then we went on into the caves.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH.
THE GOULIOT CAVES.