When Alice Millward came down to the fire, radiant in the beauty of health and freshness, her cheek flushed, her beautiful eyes sparkling, and a rebellious tendril of silken hair trembling over her brow in the breath of the morning, I so looked my admiration that she instinctively blushed. I turned away, busying myself with the fire. Somehow I could not help whistling snatches of the merry air that had been running in my head all the morning.
She caught my eye presently and said in a tone of full conviction, “Mr. Morgan, you have found some way of getting that treasure. I know you have by your manner this morning.”
“You are mistaken, Miss Millward. I only wish you were not. The fact is I have only just found that it is possible to begin again calmly to think and plan. But that discovery is quite enough to cheer one. It is a good deal to have recovered from the stunning disappointment of yesterday, and to have regained composure and confidence; for that is equivalent to regaining one’s faculties. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” she answered, with a little air of thoughtfulness, “but I really do not know; for to speak the truth I do not think I felt the disappointment so severely as either you or father. Of course I was sorry, but then you see I was not so deeply interested, perhaps, as you two were.”
Mr. Millward now came up, and after the usual morning greeting said, “I imagine it will now be in order to begin to think of getting back to civilization. Our labors here seem to have come to naught.”
“No,” said I with some heat, “I shall not leave until I find it utterly impossible to explore that sunken hull. I could not rest comfortably elsewhere so long as a bit of hope was left. Of course,” I added, after a moment’s pause, “I cannot ask you to remain. But I do hope you will consent to stay a few days longer. We ought to protect the wreck from destruction in some way before the next gale. And I think it can be done.”
“Ah, that is the question, that is the problem,” I replied. “If we could build a breakwater across the mouth of the chasm in some manner the hull would lie safely where it is. We could then leave, and come back with divers to get the treasure at a later time.”