"But Sophie will worry."
"She will think you're with Anthony—he's nice and safe."
"Perhaps some one will have seen us, and have told her, and anyhow, I must get back for dinner."
"Any one may eat a dinner, but for you and me there may never be another moment like this!"
Following a steep path they came presently to a curious and lonely spot. Here was an ancient burying place. On a rocky headland, overlooking the entrance to the harbor and the wide sweep of the sea beyond, the first dead of the colony had been buried; here lay the forefathers of the town. Many of the stones had fallen; others stood sturdily where they had stood for centuries. Strange old stones they were, of gray slate, etched with forbidding symbols of skulls and crossbones.
In one corner was a monument of later erection. It had to do with the memory of more than a hundred men who had been lost in a September gale off the fishing banks.
Bettina shivered as she read the carved history.
"Oh, how did the women stand it," she said, "to come here to the top of this hill, week after week, watching? To wonder and worry and fear. To wake in the middle of the night and know that their husbands and lovers were out in the blackness and storm. And then at last to see the boats coming in, and not know whether the ones they loved were on board—to find, perhaps, at last, that they were not on board. How did they stand it?"
"As you would have stood it, if you had been one of them——"
"Would I?" wistfully. "Do you think I could be brave and patient?"