Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/507



HROUGH the rapidly falling darkness Jamie stumbled home. He stumbled because there was a vision that filled his eyes to the exclusion of everything else, even the walk upon which he trod. All he could see was the lean, slender form of a girl with rounded curves, with flushed cheeks, with wind-swept hair, with the fires of indignation streaming from the brown-gray eyes as she rushed down the beach in search of him. He reflected that possibly it was well for him that she had not found him, that he might stand a better chance with her if she had more time to reflect before he tried to talk to her.

When he reached the bench under the jacqueranda, he dropped on it and sat there, a bewildered and a broken man. He reflected that he had run true to the well-known characteristic of the Scots. He had bridled his anger and bided his time and waited long to strike. Then, when he struck, he had struck too cruelly, too hard. There was no use to try to imagine anything else, to think any other way. The whole situation was open before him now. There was no one his Storm Girl could be save Molly Cameron, the niece of his neighbour and friend.