Shifting Sands - free ebook by Sara Ware Bassett

SHIFTING SANDS

Our lives are like the ever shifting sands Which ocean currents whirl in the ebb and flow Of their unresisting tides...

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Chapter I

The Widder lived on the spit of sand jutting out into Crocker's Cove. Just why she should have been singled out by this significant sobriquet was a subtle psychological problem. There were other women in Belleport and in Wilton, too, who had lost husbands. Maria Eldridge was a widow and so was Susan Ann Beals. Indeed death had claimed the head of many a household in the community, for to follow the sea was a treacherous business. Nevertheless, despite the various homes in which solitary women re

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Chapter II

In the meantime, Marcia Howe, the heroine of this escapade, comfortably ensconced in her island homestead, paid scant heed to the fact that she and her affairs were continually on the tongues of the outlying community. She was not ignorant of it for, although too modest to think herself of any great concern to others, her intuitive sixth sense made her well aware her goings and comings were watched. This knowledge, however, far from nettling her, as it might have done had she been a woman blesse

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Chapter III

The train was ten minutes late, and while she paced the platform at Sawyer Falls, the nearest station, Marcia fidgeted. She had never seen any of Jason's family. At first a desultory correspondence had taken place between him and his sister, Margaret; then gradually it had died a natural death—the result, no doubt, of his indolence and neglect. When the letters ceased coming, Marcia had let matters take their course. Was it not kinder to allow the few who still loved him to remain ignorant of wh

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Chapter IV

The village store, grandiloquently styled by a red sign the Wilton Emporium, was thronged with the usual noontime crowd. It was a still, grey day, murky with fog and the odors of wet oilskins, steaming rubber coats, damp woolens blended with a mixture of tar, coffee and tobacco smoke, made its interior thick and stuffy. Long ago the air-tight stove had consumed such remnants of oxygen as the room contained. The windows reeked with moisture; the floor was gritty with sand. These discomforts, howe

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Chapter V

The nose of the setter quivered and, going to the window, he growled. "He does hear something," asserted Sylvia. "What do you suppose it is?" "Gulls, most likely. They circle above the house in clouds," was Marcia's careless answer. "The Prince regards them as his natural enemies. He delights to chase them up the beach and send them whirling into the air. Apparently he resents their chatter. He seems to think they are talking about him—and they may be for aught I know—talking about all of us." A

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Chapter VI

" And yet you told me, Marcia, this was a quiet, adventureless place!" burst out Sylvia, the instant the door had closed. "Isn't it?" "It doesn't seem so to me. When shipwrecked mariners fall into your arms entirely without warning, I call it thrilling. Who do you suppose he is?" "He told us his name." "Of course—Heath. Stanley Heath. It's quite a romantic name, too. But I didn't mean that. I mean where did he come from and why? Didn't he tell you?" "Not a word." Obviously the girl was disappoin

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Chapter VII

It was late afternoon and, alone in the kitchen, Sylvia yawned. Since noontime she had sat reading and straining her ears for a sound in the room overhead, but there had been none. He was sleeping after his hearty dinner and that was encouraging. Doctor Stetson had hoped the wrist would not be painful enough to interfere with the rest the patient so obviously needed, and apparently this hope was being realized. Sylvia was glad he was asleep—very glad indeed. She did not begrudge him a moment of

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Chapter VIII

Sylvia's plans, so well laid and apparently so easy of execution did not, to her chagrin, work out, for instead of awaking and demanding supper Stanley Heath slept without a break until morning. Had not Marcia insisted on leaving her door ajar lest the invalid call, the girl might have slipped down stairs in the darkness and returned the handkerchief. As it was, fate forced her to put it into her bureau drawer and await more favorable opportunity. This, alas, did not come. Sun was tinting the la

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Chapter IX

Sylvia , meanwhile, had heard Stanley Heath call Marcia and hailed her aunt's departure from the kitchen as the opportunity for which she had so anxiously been waiting. No sooner was the elder woman upstairs and out of earshot than she tiptoed from her room, the monogrammed handkerchief in her pocket. She had pried out the brick and had the jewel-case in her hand, wrapped and ready for its return when conversation overhead suddenly ceased and she heard Marcia pass through the hall and start down

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Chapter X

In the meantime, the throng of neighbors Sylvia had precipitately left in the village post office had received their mail and reached that anticipated interval for gossip which never failed to be stimulating. Clustered about the counter loitered the standbys. Zenas Henry was speaking: "A mighty fine little girl—that Sylvia," commented he. "A high stepper! We'd oughter tie her down to Wilton so'st she won't go back West. She's too pretty to be spared from the Cape." "I figger you'd have trouble k

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Chapter XI

Either the book for which Marcia searched was not to be found or she was in no haste to return to her awaiting suitor. Whatever the explanation, her absence lengthened from a few moments into a quarter of an hour. In the meantime Elisha, like his predecessor, was formulating his mode of attack. Eleazer, apparently, had not been successful. Might not this be his own golden opportunity? Before another snatched the prize from him; before Heath with his yacht and his monogrammed silken garments reco

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Chapter XII

Left alone, Elisha gloomily pursued his way to his own cottage and entering it by the side door passed through the back hall and upstairs. From the shed he could hear May Ellen, his housekeeper, singing lustily as she mopped the floor to the refrain of Smile, Smile, Smile . The sentiment jarred on him. He could not smile. Going to the closet, he took out his Sunday suit, shook it, and with the air of one making ready his shroud, spread it upon the bed. It exhaled a pungent, funereal mustiness, p

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Chapter XIII

Dawn was breaking over Wilton and the first shafts of sunlight transforming its pearly sands into sparkling splendor and its sea into spangled gold, when a trim motor car, bearing a New York number plate, slipped quietly into the village and drew up at the town garage. From it stepped a man, small and somewhat bent, with rosy cheeks, kindly brown eyes, a countenance schooled to stolidity rather than naturally so, and hair touched with grey. "May I leave my car here?" he inquired of the lad who w

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Chapter XIV

In spite of Elisha's indignation toward Stanley Heath, and his resolve to go to the Homestead with the break of dawn, it was noon before he and Eleazer got under way. In the first place, the two men disagreed as to the proper method of arresting the alleged criminal. "You can't take him on no warrant, 'Lish," Eleazer objected, "'cause you ain't actually got proof he's guilty." "Proof? Ain't I got a clear case? Ain't I roundin' him up with the loot on him?" blustered Elisha. "Mebbe. Still, it's m

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Chapter XV

" Why , Elisha!" exclaimed Marcia. "How you startled me. Come in. You're all dressed up, aren't you? Have you been to a funeral?" "No. I—we—" The sheriff cleared his throat. "Me an' Eleazer—" he began. "Eleazer? Did he come with you?" Elisha nodded. "Where is he?" "Outside." "Isn't he coming in?" "Yes—yes. He's comin' presently." "Perhaps he doesn't dare," Marcia remarked with spirit. "I don't wonder he hesitates. He ran off with my dory yesterday." "That warn't Eleazer. That was me." "You? But

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Chapter XVI

Left alone, Marcia, weary and spent, collapsed into a chair and closed her eyes, appearing to forget the presence of the girl who, with parted lips, hovered impatiently at her elbow. Something in the woman's aloofness not only discouraged speech but rendered any interruption an intrusion. At length, however, she roused herself and sighing deeply looked about, and taking the gesture as permission to break the silence, the torrent of words Sylvia had until now held in check, broke from her: "Was i

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Chapter XVII

Stanley Heath was lying with expectant face turned toward the door when Sylvia entered. "What's the rumpus?" he demanded. "You heard?" "Heard? Certainly I heard," he laughed. "I could not hear what was said, of course, but anyone within five miles could have heard those men roaring at one another. What's the trouble?" "The trouble is you," answered the girl. "Me?" "Yes. Didn't you expect trouble sometime?" "We all must expect trouble sooner or later, I suppose," was the enigmatic answer. "To jus

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Chapter XVIII

The days immediately following were like an armed truce. Marcia watched Sylvia. Sylvia watched Marcia. Heath watched them both. When, however, no further reference to the events of the past week was made, the tension slowly began to lessen, and life at the Howe Homestead took on again its customary aspect. One agency in this return to normal was the physical improvement of the invalid, who as a result of rest, fresh air, sleep, and good nursing now became well enough to come down stairs and join

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Chapter XIX

Sylvia , bubbling over with sociability after her evening at the Doanes', was surprised, on reaching the Homestead, to find a lamp set in the window and the living-room empty. Ten o'clock was not late and yet both occupants of the house had gone upstairs. This was unusual. She wondered at it. Certainly Marcia could not be asleep at so early an hour; nor Heath, either. In fact, beneath the latter's door she could see a streak of light, and could hear him moving about inside. Marcia's room, on the

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Chapter XX

" I can't imagine," repeated Sylvia, still very rosy and flustered, but with her most magnificent air, "what brought you to Wilton—I really cannot." "Can't you?" grinned Horatio cheerfully. "No, I cannot." From his superior height of six-feet-two, he looked down at her meager five feet, amusement twinkling in his eyes. Sylvia, however, was too intent on patting her curls into place to heed his glance. "You wrote me to come, didn't you?" he presently inquired. "I wrote you to come!" "Well, at lea

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Chapter XXI

He was looking very fit and comfortable, lying at full length in a Gloucester hammock with cushions beneath his head, a book in his hand, and a package of cigarettes within reach. "Sylvia!" he cried, springing up and advancing toward her with outstretched hand. "Sylvia! What a brick you are to come!" Angry as she was, when face to face with him she could not resist the contagion of his smile. "I'm glad to see you so well," she said. "This is Mr. Horatio Fuller of Alton City." Horatio looked Heat

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Chapter XXII

Intense as was the joy of the three persons, who a little later set out toward the Homestead in the old yellow dory, they were a silent trio. Too much of seriousness had happened during the morning for them to dispel its aftermath lightly. Horatio, pulling at the oars, was unusually earnest, Sylvia turned the ring on her finger reflectively and Stanley Heath looked far out over the water, too deep in thought to be conscious of either of them. When, however, the boat swung into the channel, Sylvi

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