"Oh, I know. You always had a pair of skittish heels, Hetty." He turned his face to her suddenly. "Is there any one else?"
"No," she said.
"All right," he answered; "I'll hope on. I've been doing that a long time; I'm not going to stop now." He was silent a moment, and then he said: "Do you know how long that's been, Hetty? Fourteen years. We were in school then, and it began the day of that big snow-storm, when I drew you home on my sled. You wore a red jacket, and your cheeks were almost as red. I can see you sitting there now, and smiling whenever I looked back. You were the shyest little thing! When we reached your gate, you just slipped off and ran into the house without turning."
"Oh, do you remember that!"
"I've thought of it under every star in the sky, I think. I guess that's the way it will always be with you—slipping away and not looking back." He laughed a little dolefully.
"I'm not like that," she said in a low voice. "I may go away, but I shall look back. I am no longer a child."
"Then don't go away," he said eagerly; but she stopped him.
"Don't, Tom!" she pleaded. "Don't speak of it any more—now. Just be friends."
"All right, Hetty. It will be as you say. I don't nag my—friends." He smiled forlornly.
In silence they watched the swells racing in. They were like living things, of incredible speed, insatiable, pitiless, rushing on to infold them. As the brig rolled in their grasp, the girl instinctively moved her body against the roll: it was as if she thought to lessen the awful dip of the deck with her puny weight; and whenever the great rollers passed, and the vessel, like a tired thing, lay for an instant almost at peace in the lower levels of the sea, an involuntary sigh of relief escaped her. Medbury heard her and looked up.