Page:Rideout--Beached keels.djvu/73

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BLUE PETER
59

light pale, and the girl's face, from being young, had taken on the mysterious look of age that sometimes comes to one who has long watched the sea. Their comradeship grew closer,—little human allies tacitly united in the face of vast and melancholy nature. A slow-forming thought suddenly overwhelmed him: here was a girl who, in her eyes, her speech, her acts, showed that her life could include and master sorrow. And he had walked with her hardly two hours, and he could not bear to leave her.

"The hardest part," said the girl sadly, as if speaking to herself in the void of ocean air, "is not to know what my father really believes and really does n't. He answered me once that God was the Ether of Euripides. Now what can a young girl make of that?" Suddenly her wide brown eyes turned to him. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "I was thinking—what have I said?— But you 'll forget it—and you 're not a stranger"—

"No," he faltered, his voice thick and coming with an effort. "No, I'm not a stranger—I won't tell—and even if I did, no one