She had been self-sufficient enough all her life,--"an independent little bird of freedom," as Crozier had called her; but she was like a boat tossed on mountainous waves now.
"S.

O.S.!--Save Our Souls!" As though she really had made this poignant call Crozier turned round in the buggy where he sat with Jesse Bulrush, pale but erect; and, with a strange instinct, he looked straight to where she was.

When he saw her his face flushed, he could not have told why.

Was it that there had passed to him in his sleep the subconscious knowledge of the kiss which Kitty had given him; and, after all, had he said "My darling" to her and not to the wife far away across the seas, as he thought?
A strange feeling, as of secret intimacy, never felt before where Kitty was concerned, passed through him now, and he was suddenly conscious that things were not as they had ever been; that the old impersonal comradeship had vanished.

It disturbed, it almost shocked him.