Small discredit to her if she staggered under its onset, trembled and turned faint! For as she now perceived, it was exactly this relation of brother and sister of which she had some prescience, some dim intuition, from her first sight of Faircloth as he stood among the skeleton lobster-pots on board Timothy Proud's old boat.

It was this call of a common blood which begot in her unreasoning panic, which she had run from and so wildly tried to escape.

And yet it remained a gift of great price, a crown of gold; but oh! so very heavy--just at this moment anyhow--for her poor proud young head.
Lifting her hand off Faircloth's, she made a motion to rise.

Change of attitude and place might bring her relief, serve to steady her nerves and restore her endangered composure! Brooding over the whole singular matter in the peace and security of her room upstairs, her course had appeared a comparatively easy one, granted reasonable courage and address.

But the young man's bodily presence, as now close beside her, exercised an emotional influence quite unforeseen and unreckoned with.