ifferent feeling. The girl had not acknowledged
it. Bellairs had not asked her to do so; but he meant to. Only the
thought of his treachery to the woman lying in the cabin below held him
back, just for a moment, and prompted him to talk lightly of indifferent
things. But that treachery had been a necessary manoeuvre in his
campaign of happiness. He strove to dismiss it from his mind as he leant
forward in his chair, and led Lady Betty to the subject that lay so near
to his heart.

"You love me?" she said presently.

"Yes--deeply. You are angry?"

"How can I be? No, no--and yet--"

"Yes?"

"And yet, when you told me, I felt sad."

Bellairs looked keenly vexed, and she hastened to add:--

"Not because I am--indifferent. No, no. I can't explain why the feeling
came. It was gone in a moment. And now--"

"Now you are happy?"

He caught her hand and she left it in his.

"Yes, very happy."

Bellairs bent over her and kissed her--as he lifted himself up a white
hand appeared on the rail of the companion that led from the lower to
the upper deck of the _Hatasoo_. Clarice wearily dragged herself up.
She was wrapped in a shawl and looked very ill. Betty ran to help her.

"I thought I must get a little air," she said feebly. "How d'you do, Mr
Bellairs?"

She sank down in a chair.

Bellairs felt like a man between two fires.

* * * * *

Two days later Lord Braydon gave his consent to his daughter's
engagement with Bellairs, and Lady Betty ran to tell Clarice. She had
not previously said a word to her friend of what had passed between her
and Bellairs. He had begged her to keep silence until he had spoken to
Lord Braydon, and she had promised and had kept her promise. But now she
rushed into the saloon where Clarice was playing Chopin, and, throwing
her arms round her friend, told her the great news. The body of Clarice
became rigid in her arms.

"And the king has consented," Betty cried.

The king was her father.

"Clarice, Clarice, isn't it wonderful?"

"Wonderful! I thought so when you told me. But already I begin to doubt
if it is."

"To doubt, Clarice?"

"To doubt whether anything a man does is wonderful."

That was all Clarice said. Then she kissed Betty, and went on playing
Chopin feverishly, while Betty told, to the accompaniment of the music,
all that was in her heart.

"And," she said at last, "I love him, Clarice; I love him intensely. I
shall always love him