A Rock in the Baltic | Page 5

have taken the gold. I should have come up with you,

and told you that it still awaited you in the bank, and now I beg your
permission to walk down the street with you, because if any one were
looking at us from these windows, and saw us pursued by a bareheaded
man with a revolver, they will now, on looking out again, learn that it is
all right, and may even come to regard the revolver and the hatless one
as an optical delusion."
Again the girl laughed.
"I am quite unknown in Bar Harbor, having fewer acquaintances than
even a stranger like yourself, therefore so far as I am concerned it does
not in the least matter whether any one saw us or not. We shall walk
together, then, as far as the spot where the cashier overtook us, and this
will give me an opportunity of explaining, if not of excusing, my
leaving the money on the counter. I am sure my conduct must have
appeared inexplicable both to you and the cashier, although, of course,
you would be too polite to say so."
"I assure you, Miss Amhurst--"
"I know what you would say," she interrupted, with a vivacity which
had not heretofore characterized her, "but, you see, the distance to the
corner is short, and, as I am in a hurry, if you don't wish my story to be
continued in our next--"
"Ah, if there is to be a next--" murmured the young man so fervently
that it was now the turn of color to redden her cheeks.
"I am talking heedlessly," she said quickly. "What I want to say is this:
I have never had much money. Quite recently I inherited what had been
accumulated by a relative whom I never knew. It seemed so incredible,
so strange-- well, it seems incredible and strange yet-- and I have been
expecting to wake and find it all a dream. Indeed, when you overtook
me at this spot where we now stand, I feared you had come to tell me it
was a mistake; to hurl me from the clouds to the hard earth again."
"But it was just the reverse of that," he cried eagerly. "Just the reverse,
remember. I came to confirm your dream, and you received from my

hand the first of your fortune."
"Yes," she admitted, her eyes fixed on the sidewalk.
"I see how it was," he continued enthusiastically. "I suppose you had
never drawn a check before."
"Never," she conceded.
"And this was merely a test. You set up your dream against the hard
common sense of a bank, which has no dreams. You were to transform
your vision into the actual, or find it vanish. When the commonplace
cashier passed forth the coin, their jingle said to you, 'The supposed
phantasy is real,' but the gold pieces themselves at that supreme
moment meant no more to you than so many worthless counters, so you
turned your back upon them."
She looked up at him, her eyes, though moist, illumined with pleasure
inspired by the sympathy in his tones rather than the import of his
words. The girl's life heretofore had been as scant of kindness as of
cash, and there was a deep sincerity in his voice which was as
refreshing to her lonesome heart as it was new to her experience. This
man was not so stupid as he had pretended to be. He had accurately
divined the inner meaning of what had happened. She had forgotten the
necessity for haste which had been so importunate a few minutes
before.
"You must be a mind-reader," she said.
"No, I am not at all a clever person," he laughed. "Indeed, as I told you,
I am always blundering into trouble, and making things uncomfortable
for my friends. I regret to say I am rather under a cloud just now in the
service, and I have been called upon to endure the frown of my
superiors."
"Why, what has happened?" she asked. After their temporary halt at the
corner where they had been overtaken, they now strolled along together
like old friends, her prohibition out of mind.

"Well, you see, I was temporarily in command of the cruiser coming
down the Baltic, and passing an island rock a few miles away, I thought
it would be a good opportunity to test a new gun that had been put
aboard when we left England. The sea was very calm, and the rock
most temptsome. Of course I knew it was Russian territory, but who
could have imagined that such a point in space was inhabited by
anything else than sea-gulls."
"What!" cried the girl, looking up at him with new interest. "You don't
mean to say you are the officer that Russia