d--the crispest, most invigorating air
in the world except that which blows on the Baltic shores.

"I prefer Farlingford. I am half a Clubbe--and the other half!--Heaven
knows what that is! The offshoot of some forgotten seedling blown away
from France by a great storm. If my father knew, he never said anything.
And if he knew, and said nothing, one may be sure that it was because he
was ashamed of what he knew. You never saw him, or you would have known
his dread of France, or anything that was French. He was a man living
in a dream. His body was here in Farlingford, but his mind was
elsewhere--who knows where? And at times I feel that, too--that
unreality--as if I were here, and somewhere else at the same time. But
all the same, I prefer Farlingford, even if it is a dream."

The moon had risen at last; a waning half-moon, lying low and yellow in
the sky, just above the horizon, casting a feeble light on earth. Loo
turned and looked at Miriam, who had always met his glance with her
thoughtful, steady eyes. But now she turned away.

"Farlingford is best, at all events," he said, with an odd conviction.
"I am only the grandson of old Seth Clubbe, of Maiden's Grave. I am a
Farlingford sailor, and that is all. I am mate of 'The Last Hope'--at
your service."

"You are more than that."

He made a step nearer to her, looking down at her white face, averted
from him. For her voice had been uncertain--unsteady--as if she were
speaking against her will.

"Even if I am only that," he said, suddenly grave, "Farlingford may
still be a dream--Farlingford and--you."

"What do you mean?" she asked, in a quick, mechanical voice, as if she
had reached a desired crisis at last and was prepared to act.

"Oh, I only mean what I have meant always," he answered. "But I have
been afraid--afraid. One hears, sometimes, of a woman who is
generous enough to love a man who is a nobody--to think only of love.
Sometimes--last voyage, when you used to sit where you are sitting
now--I have thought that it might have been my extraordinary good
fortune to meet such a woman."

He waited for some word or sign, but she sat motionless.

"You understand," he went on, "how contemptible must seem their talk of
a heritage in France, when such a thought is in one's mind, even if--"

"Yes," she interrupted, hastily. "You were quite wrong. You were
mistaken."

"Mistaking in thinking you--"

"Yes," she interrupted again. "You are quite mistaken, and