He bent over and touched her shoulder lightly.

"Annie!" he whispered.

She held her breath and kept her face hidden.

He dropped on his knee in the sand beside her. "Annie, darlin', don't be cryin'. Tell me what's the trouble." He forcibly transferred her head from the sand bank to his shoulder, and her tears trickled down his neck. "Is it yer finger that's hurtin' ye?"

She raised a tear-stained face with a quick smile quivering through at this purely masculine suggestion.

"It's not me finger; it's me feelin's," she breathed into his ear. Peter tightened his arms around her. "But they 're not hurtin' any more," she added with a little laugh.

"An' this time we 'll be friends f'r always?"

She nodded.

"Gee!" he whispered. "I 've been spendin' the week in hell thinkin' ye did n't care nothin' for me."

"So uv I," said Annie.