He spoke with earnestness as the boat approached the island, and, with the sail lowered, drifted lightly before the wind towards the beach.
'Will you tell your grandfather?' asked Othmar, as they neared the isle.
'Do you think that I ought?' she said in a very low voice, in which was an unspoken supplication.
'I think you ought,' he answered. 'Do not begin your life with a secret.'
'Surely,' he continued, 'he will not be very angry when he knows that you were so much pressed by the Countess Othmar, and that I have myself brought you home. He will be sure you have been as safe as with himself. I will come and see you again some day.'
The face of Damaris clouded. She was silent, occupying herself with guiding the vessel through the surf which broke on the broad shell beach of Bonaventure.
The mists were white and soft, the head of the cliffs was invisible in the tender silvery fog; she could hear the voices above her of Clovis and Brunehildt. The boat was run ashore, and she leaped out before Othmar could aid her.
'You are vexed with me,' he said with a smile. 'But, indeed, my dear, it would be a life-long regret to me if, through any suggestion or persuasion of my wife's, you were brought into a life which failed to answer your ideal of it, and rendered you unfitted to return to the simplicity and quiet of this happy little place. There are neither knights nor lions nowadays for Una. She must defend herself in a bitter warfare in which her sex is only a weapon against her, while her enemies are without scruple. Adieu, you will prefer to go up alone.'
She turned quickly, and looked up at him with a contrite, timid little smile.
'I have no doubt you are right, only--one dreams things--sometimes. I ought to thank you so much: you have been very good to me.'
'Not at all. I have had a charming night upon the sea, and am your debtor.'
Then he begged her to keep the little gold compass in memory of that evening, raised his hat, and left her.
'Can you manage the boat alone?' she cried to him in anxiety.
'Quite well,' said Othmar, as he pushed it through the surf.
When he was some roods from the shore he looked back; he saw the figure of Damaris still standing where he had left her, the silvery green mass of the olive-clothed cliffs rising behind her till they were lost in the hovering clouds of mist. The barking of the dogs came faintly over the sea, and a bell tolled from above the daybreak call to work.