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THE BOND

an additional tenderness for him, and it freed her absolutely from her resentment of the affair with Isabel. It had enabled her to forgive Basil, and to put the thing entirely out of her mind.

Well, and now? She did not quite know what would happen now, but for the moment she was indifferent. Basil must come back sometime, and then they would see.

She dined alone; and afterward walked by the light of a half moon down to the sea. This was the side of the island which faced the open ocean, and great breakers rolled in to fling themselves on the shore. The wind was still rising. It blew her hair about as she sat on the sand, and whipped it into strings over her forehead, and left on her lips the salt taste of the sea. She sat there till the moon was near setting, feeling with deep pleasure the tumult of the night, and, with something that was not pain, the tumult, the exciting uncertainty of life.