THE LIGHTHOUSE

part of their extraordinary charm. I will make her
smile at me, he thought. She looks frightened.
She was so silent. He clutched his fingers, and
determined that his voice and his face and all the
quick expressive gestures which had been at his
command making people pity him and praise him
all these years should subdue themselves. He
would make her smile at him. He would find
some simple easy thing to say to her. But what?
For, wrapped up in his work as he was, he forgot
the sort of thing one said. There was a puppy.
They had a puppy. Who was looking after the
puppy to-day? he asked. Yes, thought James
pitilessly, seeing his sister's head against the sail,
now she will give way. I shall be left to fight the
tyrant alone. The compact would be left to him
to carry out. Cam would never resist tyranny to
the death, he thought grimly, watching her face,
sad, sulky, yielding. And as sometimes happens
when a cloud falls on a green hillside and gravity
descends and there among all the surrounding
hills is gloom and sorrow, and it seems as if the
hills themselves must ponder the fate of the
clouded, the darkened, either in pity, or malici-
ously rejoicing in her dismay: so Cam now felt
herself overcast, as she sat there among calm,
resolute people and wondered how to answer her
father about the puppy; how to resist his entreaty

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