“Romantically rugged.” She didn’t want her portrait painted; had only wanted dry clothes.
“They had no right to do it,” she told herself savagely. “If that boy and girl hadn’t been tempting God and Providence by playing in the surf, I wouldn’t have been obliged to risk my life to save the girl. And on top of that they have the nerve to want me to pose as a heroine!”
She slumped lower in her chair. Yes, she’d go home to-morrow. She had begun by loving Monhegan. The bold, stark beauty of it had fascinated her. Nowhere else did the surf run so high. Nowhere else were the headlands so bold. No surf was so green, blue and purple as that which rose and fell off Black Head, Burnt Head and Skull Rock.
But now the cold brutality of nature as demonstrated here left her terrified and cold.
Perhaps, after all, she was only in a physical slump after a heroic effort. For all that, she had formed a resolve to leave Monhegan in the morning. Like a spike in a mahogany log, the resolve had struck home. It would not be withdrawn.
As for Pearl, she was at that moment listening to such music as it was seldom her privilege to hear—Tittle’s Serenade done on harp, flute, violin and cello. Her eyes were half closed, but for all that she was seeing things. She was, as in a vision, looking into the night where a single ray of light fell upon a mysterious dark-winged seaplane speeding away through the fog above the sea.
* * * * * * * *
It was at noon of that day that Betty found herself moving slowly, cautiously down the narrow passageway at the heart of old Fort Skammel, that was supposed to lead to the spot where Ruth had seen the face in the light of her Roman candle on the Fourth of July.
The place was spooky enough in daytime. In truth, day and night were alike in those subterranean passageways which had once led from dungeon to dungeon and from a battery room to one at a farther corner of the massive pile of masonry. No ray of light ever entered there. The walls were damp and clammy as a tomb.
Still, urged on by mystery and who knows what need of change and excitement, the slender, dark-eyed girl pushed forward down this corridor, round a curve, across a small room which echoed in a hollow way at her every footstep, then round a curve again until with a wildly beating heart she paused on the very spot where Ruth had fired the eventful Roman candle.