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It was no new experience for the quartette, led by the Captain, to hike through the woods, but something really new awaited them this time, as they soon discovered to their sorrow. Cleo was in the lead and, after plunging through a rather thick growth of underbrush, she suddenly uttered a cry. "What is it a snake?" asked Margaret, who followed.
In another moment Julia and Helen were with Cleo and Margaret, who had easily climbed down the pier, and were there when the boat came in. Scarcely speaking, the little group waited for a space to reach the life boat. Louise, dripping, and sobbing just a little, sat in the skiff with the seemingly lifeless form of Kitty in her arms.
"You read it, Cleo." The engine had not been turned off, so that it readily picked up speed again, as the girls waved gayly to Bentley. Cleo smoothed out the little note anxiously, and every one saw it was written on the old-time yellow paper. Cleo read aloud: "Bentley is going home and I won't stay here any longer. Watch for my wig-wag signal from the stone arch, and come to rescue me and Royal.
You see, when summer comes the natives pack up and leave their homes to rent them profitably. That means only the post-master, and store keepers stay put." "I have asked more questions and got fewer answers since I came to Sea Crest than I would have believed possible to ask and not receive," declared Cleo. "But what is your special trouble, Grace?"
No longer would it be a mere desperate submission to idle drifting amid the scenes of a dreamland; though the same temperament as before was at the back of his decision. Of course, his general determination to face the full responsibility of his relation to Cleo likewise counted for a good deal in his assenting to accompany her on this visit she purposed to her parents.
"I don't know," said Cléo, "It also made me feel that I wanted to be far away from it and from here. Then, Monsieur le Prince, with his story of desolate Kerguelen, completed the feeling. It is strong upon me now." "You do not wish to go to Kerguelen then?" said the Prince smiling as he helped himself to the entrée that was being passed round.
Don't bother with it. You know how we made out with the pink crabs." "Yes," put in Julia. "Let's change our color scheme. Here's a lovely amethyst shell." The trot was started up again, heads erect, shoulders back, and elbows in regular marathon for the beach on this perfect summer's day. "Look here!" called Cleo. "Here's another message about fire-bugs.
"Oh, please excuse me for laughing," spoke the child, "but you look too cunning just like like colored animals," she faltered. Cleo smiled her forgiveness, while at that moment Madaline shouted the find of the first four-leaf clover. "And such a lovely big fat one!" she qualified, now skipping over the tall grasses quite kangaroo fashion.
Her genius, too, cast an added glamour of enchantment over the new life that lay before him a dream-life into which this marriage would take him entirely, and by contrast with which, apart from its anguish, the real life behind him lay dull and leaden. To link his life with hers! To launch Cleo as a great actress! To win renown side by side!
Cleo shrugged her shoulders and wrote the necessary undertaking. Morgan understood that her "innovation" might have got her into serious trouble, had not the entire hopelessness of her acting proclaimed her as a person to be pitied. That same day Morgan could not help broaching the subject of the finances. The money side of the enterprise had by now got stamped on his brain.
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