"Has anything happened?"

"You have been very ill."

"How long?"

"This is the eighth day."

"The eighth day!" He frowned in a mental effort to unravel the past.

"Then I must have been--out of my head."

"Yes, most of the time." She was watching him with anxious eyes.

"Perhaps you had better not talk much now. Try and sleep again."

"No, I am--full of sleep. Is this the same house--we discovered that first day?"

"Yes."

He closed his eyes, and again she rested a hand upon his brow.

"Who is here besides you?" he asked.

"No one--except Solomon."

"Solomon!" and he smiled. "Is Solomon well?"

"Oh, yes! Very well."

"Then you have taken care of me all this time?"

She turned away and took up a gla.s.s of water from a table near the bed.

"Yes; Solomon and I together. Are you thirsty? Would you like anything?"

Pats closed his eyes and took a long breath. There was no use in trying to say what he felt, so he answered in a husky voice, which he found difficult to control:

"Thank you. I _am_ thirsty."

"Would you like tea or a gla.s.s of water?"

"Water, please."

"Or, would you prefer grapes?"

"Grapes!"

"Yes, grapes, or oranges, or pears, whichever you prefer."

His look of incredulity seemed to amuse her. "Do you remember the two boxes and the barrel left by the _Maid of the North_ on the beach with our baggage?"

He nodded.

"Well, one of those boxes was filled with fruit."

"Is there plenty for both of us?"

"More than enough."

"Then I will have a gla.s.s of water first and then grapes--and all the other things."

He drank the water, and as she took away the empty gla.s.s, he said, in a serious tone: "Miss Marshall, I wish I could tell you how mortified I am and how--how--"

"Mortified! At what?"

"All this trouble--this--whole business."

"But you certainly could not help it!"

"That's very kind of you, but it's all wrong--all wrong!"

She smiled and moved away, and as she drew aside the tapestry and disappeared, he turned his face to the wall, and muttered, "Disgraceful!

Disgraceful! I must get well fast."

And he carried out this resolve. Every hour brought new strength. In less than a week he was out of bed and sitting up. During this early period of convalescence--the period of tremulous legs and ravenous hunger--the Fourth of July arrived, and they celebrated the occasion by a sumptuous dinner. There was soup, sardines, cold tongue, dried-apple sauce, baked potatoes, fresh bread, and preserved pears, and the last of the grapes. At table, Elinor faced the empty chair that held the miniature, for the absent lady's right to that place was always respected. Pats sat at the end facing the door. They dined at noon. A bottle of claret was opened and they drank to the health of Uncle Sam.

Toward the end of the dinner, Pats arose, and with one hand on the table to reinforce his treacherous legs, held aloft his gla.s.s. Looking over to the dog, who lay by the open door, his head upon his paws, he said:

"Solomon, here's to a certain woman; of all women on earth the most unselfish and forgiving, the most perfect in spirit and far and away the most beautiful--the Ministering Angel of the Pines. G.o.d bless her!"

At these words Solomon, as if in recognition of the sentiment, arose from his position near the door, walked to Elinor's side and, with his habitual solemnity, looked up into her eyes.

"Solomon," said Pats, "you have the soul of a gentleman."

In Elinor's pale face there was a warmer color as she bent over and caressed the dog.

After the dinner all three walked out into the pines, Pats leaning on the lady's arm. The day was warm. But the gentle, southerly breeze came full of life across the Gulf. And the water itself, this day, was the same deep, vivid blue as the water that lies between Naples and Vesuvius. The convalescent and his nurse stopped once or twice to drink in the air--and the scene.

Pats filled his lungs with a long, deep breath. "I feel very light. Hold me fast, or I may float away."

Both his head and his legs seemed flighty and precarious. Those two gla.s.ses of claret were proving a little too much--they had set his brain a-dancing. But this he kept to himself. She noticed the high spirits, but supposed them merely an invalid's delight in getting out of doors.

Under the big trees they rested for a time, in silence, Elinor gazing out across the point, over the glistening sea beyond. The shade of the pines they found refreshing. The convalescent lay at full length, upon his back, looking up with drowsy eyes into the cool, dark canopy, high above. Soothing to the senses was the sighing of the wind among the branches.

"This is good!" he murmured. "I could stay here forever."

"That may be your fate," and her eyes moved sadly over the distant, sailless sea. "It is a month to-day that we have been here."

"So it is, a whole month!"

Elinor sighed. "There is something wrong, somewhere. It seems to me the natural--the only thing--would be for somebody to hunt us up."