"Once you asked me a question," he said. "We separated because I refused
to answer you."
She closed her eyes and the color flooded her face.
"I shall never ask it again," she said.
But he went on: "I refused to reply. I was an ass; I had theories, too.
They're gone, quite gone. I will answer you now, if you wish."
Her face burned. "No! No, don't--don't answer me; don't, I beg of you!
I--I know now that even the gods--" She covered her face with her hands.
The boat drifted rapidly on; it was flood-tide.
"Yes, even the gods," he said. "There is the answer. Now you know."
Overhead the sky grew pink; wedge after wedge of water-fowl swept
through the calm evening air, and their aerial whimpering rush sounded
faintly over the water.
"Kathleen!"
She made no movement.
Far away a dull shock set the air vibrating. The _Dione_ was saluting
her castaways. The swift Southern night, robed in rose and violet,
already veiled the forest; and the darkling water deepened into purple.
"Jack!"
He rose and crept forward to the stern where she was sitting. Her hands
hung idly; her head was bent.
Into the purple dusk they drifted, he at her feet, close against her
knees. Once she laid her hands on his shoulders, peering at him with wet
eyes.
And, with his lips pressed to her imprisoned hands, she slipped down
into the boat beside him, crouching there, her face against his.
So, under the Southern stars, they drifted home together. The _Dione_
fired guns and sent up rockets, which they neither heard nor saw; Major
Brent toddled about the deck and his guests talked scandal; but what did
they care!
Darrow, standing alone on the wrecked launch, stared at the stars and
waited for the search-boat to return.
It was dawn when the truth broke upon Major Brent. It broke so suddenly
that he fairly yelped as the _Dione_ poked her white beak seaward.
It was dawn, too, when a pigeon-toed Seminole Indian stood upon the
veranda of a house which was covered with blossoms of Pasque Florida.
Silently he stood, inspecting the closed door; then warily stooped and
picked up something lying on the veranda at his feet. It was a gold
comb.
"Heap squaw," he said, deliberately. "Tiger will go."
But he never did.
* * * * *