at once. "Why
should I? I cannot--cannot. Oh, it could not be--not at least for a
long, long time, not for years and years, Philip."

"Guida," he answered gravely and persistently, "I want you to marry
me--to-morrow."

She was overwhelmed. She could scarcely speak. "To-morrow--to-morrow,
Philip? You are laughing at me. I could not--how could I marry you
to-morrow?"

"Guida, dearest,"--he took her hands more tightly now--"you must indeed.
The day after to-morrow my ship is going to Portsmouth for two months.
Then we return again here, but I will not go now unless I go as your
husband!"

"Oh, no, I could not--it is impossible, Philip! It is madness--it is
wrong. My grandfather--"

"Your grandfather need not know, sweetheart."

"How can you say such wicked things, Philip?"

"My dearest, it is not necessary for him to know. I don't want any one
to know until I come back from Portsmouth. Then I shall have a ship of
my own--commander of the Araminta I shall be then. I have word from the
Admiralty to that effect. But I dare not let them know that I am married
until I get commissioned to my ship. The Admiralty has set its face
against lieutenants marrying."

"Then do not marry, Philip. You ought not, you see."

Her pleading was like the beating of helpless wings against the bars of
a golden cage.

"But I must marry you, Guida. A sailor's life is uncertain, and what I
want I want now. When I come back from Portsmouth every one shall know,
but if you love me--and I know you do--you must marry me to-morrow.
Until I come back no one shall know about it except the clergyman, Mr.
Dow of St. Michael's--I have seen him--and Shoreham, a brother officer
of mine. Ah, you must, Guida, you must! Whatever is worth doing is
better worth doing in the time one's own heart says. I want it more, a
thousand times more, than I ever wanted anything in my life."

She looked at him in a troubled sort of way. Somehow she felt wiser than
he at that moment, wiser and stronger, though she scarcely defined the
feeling to herself, though she knew that in the end her brain would
yield to her heart in this.

"Would it make you so much happier, Philip?" she said more kindly than
joyfully, more in grave acquiescence than delighted belief.

"Yes, on my honour--supremely happy."

"You are afraid that otherwise, by some chance, you might lose me?" she
said it tenderly, yet with a little pain.

"Yes, yes, that is it, Guida dearest," he replied.