Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/253

 to find the skipper of the Mary K. Jones sitting on the doorsteps discoursing volubly to a group of fishermen upon the incidents of the storm, and showing little evidence of the precarious condition he had been in the night before, except for a bandage that swathed the crown of his head and precluded the use of any other head-gear. "In an hour on the beach at the foot of the pathway, half a mile further along the cliff," Janet had found occasion to whisper to him quickly.

And now he was waiting for her.

She came presently, but he did not hear her until she was close behind him—he had been looking the other way, his eyes fastened intently on the path by which he himself had descended, and the slight sound of her steps in the sand had been drowned by the noise of the surf.

She held out both her hands in frank, unaffected greeting, as he turned to face her, but there was a strange shyness in her voice.

"I came by the beach," she said. "I thought it would be safer."

He caught her hands in his—and then he could only stand there and look at her and search her eyes. A little dark-cloaked figure she was, the hood drawn over her head, the wind blowing truant hairs of gold across her face. So small, so dainty, so trim, so fresh and pure and beautiful—dear God, to sweep her into his arms and hold her there, to have her arms creep around his neck, her head to find its place upon his shoulder—through all of life!

The blood swept in waving tides to her cheeks; her eyes, lowered, sought the ground, and she gently disengaged her hands.