"But for the wind, the evening would have been more so. We shall not be late getting in, however. The captain assures me we shall be at the pier by nine o'clock."
"It will be rather dangerous landing in the dory, won't it?" asked Colonel Washburn, who was old enough to think of his personal comfort above all else.
"The tide will be high enough for us to go up to the pier," replied Leith. "We are due there just about the change."
"That's luck," somebody murmured.
But it seemed to Carlita that the time would never pass. The day had been so short, so piteously short, and those hours of the evening so endless! It seemed to her that she would have given all the world for five minutes alone, and yet she dared not leave them, knowing that Leith would follow her.
Even yet she had not confessed to herself the awful secret that was harrowing her soul, and there before them all she dared not think.
It seemed to her that the happiest moment of her life was when some one announced the fact that they had arrived at the pier, and Leith came to conduct her on shore.
But for the wind, the night would have been magnificent. The moon was full, the cold, white rays glinting over the waves in soft, almost phantom beauty.
Out in the stream were numbers of vessels buffeting the wind and tide, which was at rapid ebb, and on either side the twin cities lay, their lights twinkling like millions of brilliant stars.
Leith stepped upon the pier and lifted Carlita beside him. Then, as the others would have followed, the shrill scream of a childish voice reached them, swept by the wind from the end of the pier, a cry that sounded like the death-call of some wild bird of the forest: