He read her thoughts. “We needn't pass near her. We 'll run in close to the shore.”
She shook her head. “I'm going to turn back.”
And back they turned. In vain he urged her, reproached her, pleaded with her; hardly a word could he get during all the run back to the beach. He pulled up the boat for her, and walked by her side to the steps. There, with an odd pressure of the lips, she shook her head at him, as if afraid to trust her voice, and mounted the steps.
“Annie, you haven't told me. Will you go?”
She shook her head again, and entered the house. Beveridge, motionless, looked after her. Finally he turned, and glanced with a troubled air at the approaching schooner, then at the sleepy pier, where he could see Wilson stretched out flat holding out a bamboo fishpole over the water. Behind the house Captain Fargo was mending his nets. Beveridge heard him humming a song as he worked, and after hesitating a moment longer walked around and greeted him.
“How do you do, Captain.”
“How are you?” The fisherman straightened his spare old figure and looked at the young man. His face was brown above the beard, and crisscrossed with innumerable fine wrinkles. Beveridge knew, in meeting those faded blue eyes with their patient, subdued expression, that he was facing a man whom he could trust.
“I have something to say to you, Captain, that may be a surprise,—I want Annie.”
“You want her?”
“Yes. You may think I've not known her very long, but it has been long enough to show me that I can't go on any longer without her.”