When dinner was over — Miss Terry would have none — they went and sat upon the moonlit deck. The little vessel was under all her canvas, for the breeze was light, and skimmed over the water like a gull with its wings spread. In the low light Madeira was nothing but a blot on the sky-line. The crew were forward, with the solitary exception of the man steering the vessel from his elevated position on the bridge; and sitting as they were, abaft the deck-cabin, the two were utterly alone between the great silence of the stars and of the sea. She looked into his face, and it was tender towards her — that night was made for lovers — and tears of happiness stood in her eyes. She took his hand in hers, and her head nestled upon his breast.

“I should like to sail on for ever so, quite alone with you. I never again wish to see the land or the sun, or any other sea than this, or any other eyes than yours, to hear any more of the things that I have known, to learn to know any fresh things. If I could choose, I would ask that I might now glide gently from your arms into those of eternal sleep. Oh! Arthur, I am so happy now — so happy that I scarcely dare to speak, for fear lest I should break the spell, and I feel so good — so much nearer heaven. When I think of all my past life, it seems like a stupid dream full of little nothings, of which I cannot recall any memory except that they were empty and without meaning. But the future is worse than the past, because it looks fair, and snakes always hide in flowers. It makes me afraid. How do I know what the future will bring? I wish that the present — the pleasant, certain present that I hold with my hand — could last for ever.”

“Who does know, Mildred? If the human race could see the pleasant surprises in store for it individually, I believe that it would drown itself en masse. Who has not sometimes caught at the skirt of today and cried, ‘Stay a little — do not let tomorrow come yet!’ You know the lines —

“‘O temps suspends ton vol, et vous heures propices
Suspendez votre cours,
Laissez nous savourer les rapides delices
Des plus beaux de nos jours.’

“Lamartine only crystallized a universal aspiration when he wrote that.”

“Oh! Arthur, I tell you of love and happiness wide as the great sea round us, and you talk of ‘universal aspirations.’ It is the first cold breath from that grey-skied future that I fear. Oh! dear, I wonder — you do not know how I wonder — if, should you ask me again, I shall ever with a clear conscience be able to say, ‘Arthur, I will marry you.’”

“My dear, I asked you to be my wife last night, and what I said then I say again now. In any case, until you dismiss me, I consider myself bound to you; but I tell you frankly that I should myself prefer that you would marry me for both our sakes.”

“How cold and correct you are, how clearly you realize the position in which I am likely to be put, and in what a gentlemanlike way you assure me that your honour will always keep you bound to me! That is a weak thread, Arthur, in matters of the heart. Let Angela reappear as my rival — would honour keep you to my side? Honour, forsooth! it is like a nurse’s bogey in the cupboard — it is a shibboleth men use to frighten naughty women with, which for themselves is almost devoid of meaning. Even in this light I can see your face flush at her name. What chance shall I ever have against her?”

“Do not speak of her, Mildred; let her memory be dead between us. She who belonged to me before God, and whom I believed in as I believe in my God, she offered me the most deadly insult that a woman can offer to a man she loves — she sold herself. What do I care what the price was, whether it were money, or position, or convenience, or the approbation of her surroundings? The result is the same. Never mention her name to me again; I tell yo............