breezes of her native land, awoke to life, and
filled her heart with thoughts and longings that she, untutored, and
ignorant of the world's ways, hardly understood. Only she leaned against
the rock that cropped up out of the hillside, and pressed up against it
till the hard stone marked her hands. Perhaps the physical pain brought
her some rest from the mental disquietude which was so new to her.

The man who stood beside her was a sailor every inch of him. Not
handsome perhaps, but certainly good-looking, with honest blue eyes, and
a steadfast strong face. A man who had read and thought, and even though
now at five-and-twenty he was but second mate of the _Vanity_, had lived
his life to some purpose, for the fates had been against him; it had
been an uphill struggle always, and in uphill struggles we have little
time for the niceties of life. And now this girl, this dainty, fair,
feminine thing had come across his path like a gleam of the sunshine of
her own land, and when he felt he had fairly won her, his very honesty
set a barrier in his way.

"You know I care," she sobbed. She would have used a stronger word, but
shyness prevented her, and she put her face down on her clasped hands,
and sobbed aloud.

"If you love me," he said deliberately; he was not shy now, though he
turned away from her bowed head, and looked away over the sea sparkling
in the November sunshine, "if you love me, what is there in God's name
to stand between us?"

"That," she said, in a whisper, "just that."

"What?"

She lifted up her head now, and looked away at the sea too, but she did
not see it, for her eyes were misty with tears. And he did not see that,
for he too looked seaward. Far too deeply moved were they to look each
other in the face.

"You know," she said; and in her voice the trace of the Scotch accent
which still lingered there, inherited from her father, was softened by
the Australian drawl, which, whatever other folks might think, sounded
infinitely sweet in Harper's ears, "you know," she repeated again, "you
know," and there was an appeal in the soft voice, a prayer that he would
not force her too far.

But he had gone too far for pity. In plain words she had told him she
loved him, and in plain words now would he have named the bar that she
had set up between them.

"What is it?" he asked, and his voice sounded cold and hard, "in
heaven's name, what is it!"

"You know," she hesitated, "it is written--that--that w