That they must come to Blackwall Pier was assured.  For there were no streets, no crowds, no rumbling waggons; there were the wide sky and the unresting river, the breeze, the ships, and the endless train of brown-sailed barges.  No unseamanlike garden-seats dishonoured the quay then, and strolling lovers sat on bollards or chains, or sat not at all.

Here came Johnny and Nora Sansom when the shrinking arc of daylight was far and yellow in the west, and the Kentish hills away to the left grew dusk and mysterious.  The tide ran high, and tugs were busy.  A nest of them, with steam up, lay under the wharf wall to the right of the pier-barge, waiting for work; some were already lighted, and, on the rest, men were trimming the lamps or running them up, while a cheerful glow came from each tiny cabin and engine-room.  Rascal boys flitted about the quays and gangways—the boys that are always near boats and water, ever failing to get drowned, and ever dodging the pestered men who try to prevent it.

The first star of the evening steadied and brightened, p. 220and soon was lost amid other stars.  Below, the river set its constellations as silently, one after another, trembling and blinking; and meteor tugs shot across its firmament, in white and green and red.  Along shore the old Artichoke Tavern, gables and piles, darkened and melted away, and then lit into a little Orion, a bright cluster in the bespangled riverside.  Ever some new sail came like a ghost up reach out of the gloom, rounded the point, and faded away; and by times some distant voice was heard in measured cry over water.

They said little; for what need to talk?  They loitered awhile near the locks, and saw the turning Trinity light with its long, solemn wink, heard a great steamer hoot, far down Woolwich reach.  Now the yellow in the sky was far and dull indeed, and a myriad of stars trembled over the brimming river.  A tug puffed and sobbed, and swung out from the group under the wharf, beating a glistering tail of spray, and steaming off at the head of a train of lighters.  Out from the dark of Woolwich Reach came a sailing-ship under bare spars, drawn by another tug.  In the middle of the river the ship dropped anchor, and the tug fell back to wait, keeping its place under gentle steam.

They walked on the wharf, by the iron cranes, and far to the end, under the windows of the abandoned Brunswick Hotel.  Here they were quite alone, and p. 221here they sat together on a broad and flat-topped old bollard.

Presently said Johnny, “Are you sorry for the dance now—Nora?”  And lost his breath at the name.

Nora—he called her Nora; was she afraid or was she glad?  What was this before her?  But with her eyes she saw only the twinkling river, with the lights and the stars.

Presently she answered.  “I was very sorry,” she said slowly . . . “of course.”

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