"Apparently it brings bad luck for anybody but you to do the talking. Well, I think I will leave you before I am tempted to a loquaciousness which might bring down a curse on the house of Marsden."
Smiling to himself over the old man's superstition, Flint climbed the stairs to his own room, as softly as possible, lest Brady's wrath at being waked descend upon him. Having closed his door cautiously, he sat down by the open window, enjoying the soothing dampness of the fog as it came rolling in laden with the pungent fragrance of the salt marshes.
He sat a long while in the darkness. Even the Bug Light, which shone on ordinary nights from the tip end of Bluff Point, this evening formed only a paler shade in the universal grayness.
His thoughts turned to the scene of the morning. He remembered the wide-stretching purple of the sea, the yellow shell-strewn sand, the patch of coarse grass on the bank against which Winifred Anstice leaned. He remembered to have noted how perfectly her dun-colored dress had harmonized with the environment, so much so, that, but for the patch of red in her hat, he might have passed her as a part of the inanimate nature of the beach. He remembered, too, the touch of her hand on his shoulder there in the light-house, and the sound of her voice as she counted the steps, "One—two—three—four." Then he fell to thinking more closely than he had yet done of the girl herself,—that curious blending of subtlety and simplicity, of reserve and frankness; he had never seen anything quite like it. What a queer coincidence that she should be a descendant of this Ruth, in the room behind him! Now she spoke of it, there was a suggestion of resemblance, faint, but haunting. This must have been the secret of his desire to study her face again, and yet again, that day on the pond, to determine the source of the sense [Pg 127] of familiarity which even their first meeting had given him.
How charming her frankness about the portrait had been! Ah, there the recollection ceased to be altogether agreeable! He twisted a little in his chair, and screwed the end of his moustache into his mouth, as he recalled his own lack of response when the portrait was mentioned. Had he been deceitful? No, certainly not that, for he had conveyed no false impression by word or gesture. Disingenuous? Perhaps, but after all he was in nowise pledged to equal frankness, because his companion chose to be confidential. Suppose, though, Winifred Anstice should come to the inn; should hear from old Marsden of the portrait; should learn that it was hanging in his room, and he had made no sign!
The train of thought was perplexing, and not altogether pleasing. Flint was not sorry to have it interrupted by a call upon his attention in the appearance of two figures below, looming dim and ghostlike in the fog. Just beneath his window, they paused in their walk, and their voices came up to him first indistinctly, then with more and more clearness. The tones Flint recognized at once as belonging to Tilly Marsden and to Leonard Davitt, the young fisherman whose scarlet shirt was often to be seen on the clamming [Pg 128] grounds, and whose rich baritone voice came ringing over the pond as he sat in his boat hauling in his nets.
To-night, it was subdued, and at first scarcely rose above a murmur; at length Flint caught the words:—
"I shall never ask you again."
"I hope to goodness you won't!" answered the shriller tones of the innkeeper's daughter.