Looking out to sea, Ruth’s eye caught the gleam of Betty’s slender white figure standing up in her punt, fishing. For a time she thought of Betty and almost envied her. She had seen so much of the world and of life.
“Well, some people are lucky,” she told herself. “No use disliking them for their luck.”
At that, forgetting Betty, she sank back upon a bed of fragrant wild sweet peas, to stare dreamily at the drifting white clouds. Then, without really intending to, she fell fast asleep.
She was startled from her sleep a half hour later by a resounding boom that shook the rugged island to its base and set a thousand seagulls soaring and screaming as only seagulls can.
“Target practice,” she told herself, in no great alarm. “Ten-mile guns. Oh, listen!”
Came a loud scream as a shell passed at terrific speed through the air, and again a deafening boom.
“Closer to the island than usual,” she told herself. “Glad I’ve lifted the lobster traps. Guess I’ll get out.”
She was standing now, looking down at her staunch little motor boat that gently bumped the rocky shore of a sheltering cove.
A sudden thought struck her all of a heap. She came to earth with a jolt.
“Betty!” she thought. “Betty Bronson! She doesn’t know about the guns. She can’t. She’ll be killed, blown to bits!”