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302 So the eyes of the girl turned towards the opening in the green wild-wood, watching for the sturdy five foot eight of a not exactly graceful, but very dear, sailor boy. She didn't like that cavern at all.

But it was an entirely different sort of a person whose figure was framed by the wavering green tracery of the foliage,—a girl who stood studying them with the air of one who had been so engaged for some time, and, with that sixth or seventh sense of a woman deeply in love, wondering what had happened.

As she started towards them, her fingers agitatedly tore the scarlet petals of a flower from its dark centre. She was not wont to do that with the things she loved.

Languorously she walked, not indolently. Her graciously-curved figure had too much of latent vitality for that. Sally thought the dark rich olive line of the cheeks and throat, so flawlessly curved, and the soft brown eyes, really beautiful. The newcomer was dark, like that other visitor of the island, who called herself Carlotta, but her beauty was gentler than the metallic hardness of the good-natured dancer. It didn't occur to Sally that her own loveliness, with all the purity and delicacy of outline, compared not unfavourably with the other types. Three very distinct ones they were, though all dark, and quite as strongly contrasted, as if one of them had been suddenly changed to Titian, and one to bright blonde.

At the relationship between the man and the girl he called "Linda," Sally was puzzled. Chivalry, protection, were in his attitude. Was there more?

She welcomed her frankly, winning only a shy response.