In her miserable confession it was not strange that this half child, half woman, sometimes looked towards that gray sea, eternally waiting for her,--that sea which had taken everything from her and given her nothing in return,--for an obliterating and perhaps exonerating death! The third day of her waiting isolation was broken upon by another intrusion.

The morning had been threatening, with an opaque, motionless, livid arch above, which had taken the place of the usual flying scud and shaded cloud masses of the rainy season.

The whole outlying ocean, too, beyond the bar, appeared nearer, and even seemed to be lifted higher than the Bay itself, and was lit every now and then with wonderful clearness by long flashes of breaking foam like summer lightning.

She knew that this meant a southwester, and began, with a certain mechanical deliberation, to set her little domain in order against the coming gale.
She drove the cows to the rude shed among the scrub oaks, she collected the goats and young kids in the corral, and replenished the stock of fuel from the woodpile.

She was quite hidden in the shrubbery when she saw a boat making slow headway against the wind towards the little cove where but a moment before she had drawn up the dingey beyond the reach of breaking seas.