Being braced to meet some sort of a storm, Maltham was rather put about by not encountering it. Ulrica certainly was looking the worse[124] for her headache—her eyes were duller than usual, and there were dark marks under them, and she was very pale; but she did not seem to be at all excited, and the greeting that she gave him was out of the ordinary only in that she did not offer him her hand. He drew a quick breath, and the tense muscles of his mind relaxed. If she were taking it in that quiet way, he thought, he had worked himself into heroics for nothing. And then, quite naturally, he felt a sharp pang of resentment because she did take it so quietly. Her calmness ruffled his self-love.  
As she remained silent, making no reference to Maltham's engagement, the Major felt that the proprieties of the case were not being attended to and prompted her. "I have been wishing Geo'ge joy and prospehrity, my deah," he said. "Have yo' nothing to say to him youahself about his coming happiness?"
 
"Yes," she answered slowly, "I have a great deal to say to him—so much that I am going to carry him off in the Nixie to say it." She turned to Maltham and added: "You will come with me for a last sail, will you not?"
 
Maltham hesitated, and then answered doubtfully: "Isn't it a little cold for sailing to-day?[125] Your father says that you are not feeling well. I do think that it will be better not to go—unless you really insist upon it, of course."
 
"Yo' mustn't think of such a thing!" the Major struck in peremptorily. "The weatheh is like ice. Yo' will catch yo' death of cold!"
 
"It is no colder, father, than that day when I took George out in the Nixie for the first time—and it will do my head good," Ulrica answered. And added, to Maltham: "I do insist. Come!"
 
Against the Major's active remonstrance, and against Maltham's passive resistance, she carried her point. "Come!" she said again—and led Maltham out by the side door into the ragged garden. There she left him for a moment and returned to her father—who was standing in a very melancholy way before the fire.
 
"Do not mind, father," she said. "It is the best thing for me—it is the only thing for me."
 
He looked at her inquiringly, puzzled by her words and by her vehement tone. Suddenly she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Remember always, father, that I have loved you with my whole heart for almost my whole life long. And remember always," she[126] went on with a curiously savage earnestness, "that I am loving you with my whole heart—with every bit of it—to-day!"
 
"I am suah yo' ah, my daughteh," the Major answered, very huskily.
 
She kissed him again, holding him tight in her arms. Then she unclasped her arms with a sudden quick energy and swiftly left the room.
 
She led Maltham silently to the boat, and silently—when she had cast off the mooring—motioned to him to enter it. He found this silence ominous, and tried to break it. But the commonplace words which he wanted to speak would not come.
 
And then, as he sat in the stern and mechanically steadied the tiller while she hoisted the sail, the queer feeling again came over him that it still was that wonderful first day. This feeling grew stronger as all that he remembered so well was repeated: Ulrica's rapid movement aft to the tiller; his own shifting of his seat; her quick loosing of the centreboard as the wind caught them; and then the heeling over of the boat, and her steady motion, and the bubbling hiss of the water beneath the bow. It all so lulled him, so numbed his sense of time and fact,[127] that suddenly he looked up in her face and smiled—just as he had done on that first day.
 
 
"'I HAVE LOVED YOU WITH MY WHOLE HEART'"
But the look in Ulrica's eyes killed his smile, and brought him back with a sharp wrench to reality. Her eyes no longer were dull. They were glowing—and they seemed to cut into him like knives.
 
"Well," she asked, "have you anything to say for yourself?"
 
"No," he answered, "except that fate has been too strong for me."
 
"Fate sometimes is held accountable for a great deal," she said dryly, but with a catch in her voice.
 
They were silent again, and for a long while. The boat was running down the bay rapidly—even more rapidly, the wind being much stronger, than on that first day. They could hear, as they had not heard then, the surf crashing upon the outer beach of the Point.
 
The silence became more than he could stand. "Can you forgive me?" he asked at last.
 
Ulrica looked at him with a curious surprise. "No," she answered quite calmly. "Think for a moment about what you have done and about what you intend to do. Do you not see that it is impossible?"
 
[128] "But I love you!............