He knew too well why his arm
had trembled when for a moment it encircled Amy. The deepest and
strongest impulse of his soul was to protect her, and her instinctive
appeal to him had raised a tempest in his heart as wild as that which had
raged without. He felt that he could not yield her to another, not even
to his brother. Nature itself pointed her to him. It was to him she
turned and clung in her fears. And yet she had not even dreamed of his
untold wealth of love, and probably never would suspect it. He could not
reveal it--indeed, it must be the struggle of his life to hide it--and
she, while loving him as a brother, might easily drift into an engagement
and marriage with Burt. Could he be patient, and wear a smiling mask
through it all? That tropical night and its experiences taught him anew
that he had a human heart, with all its passionate cravings. When he came
down from his long vigil on the following morning his brow was as serene
as the scene without. Amy gave him a grateful and significant smile, and
he smiled back so naturally that observant Burt, who had been a little
uneasy over the events of the previous night, was wholly relieved of
anxiety. They had scarcely seated themselves at the breakfast-table
before Alf came running in, and said that an elm not a hundred yards from
the house had been splintered from the topmost branch to the roots. All
except Mrs. Clifford went out to look at the smitten tree, and they gazed
with awe at the deep furrow plowed in the blackened wood.
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