eart to see her quivering lips, to read in her eyes that voiceless
appeal to him, not to tempt her beyond her strength.

"My poor little girl!"

He put out his arms and drew her close to his breast again, and at
the sound of his voice, at the tender touch of his hands, she broke
down--broke down and cried passionately with her face hidden on his
shoulder. He pushed back her hat, and some strands of her hair fell
loose across his hand. He held it lightly and tenderly, noting how it
shone in the sunlight, noting that it looked like spun gold.

"Don't cry like that, my darling, it breaks my heart to hear you."

But he knew there was no hope for him in those tears. There was
resignation, heartbroken resignation to the inevitable, but not a touch
of yielding, not a spark of hope for him.

"My poor little girl!" he said again. "My poor little girl!"

"It is my poor boy, I think," she sobbed, "if you care, my poor, poor
Ben!"

She was so close and yet so far, so very far away from him.

"Susy, child, I can't bear this," his voice was hoarse with the passion
that now he could not keep under control, "you must let me go--now."

She raised her face and looked with her tear-dimmed eyes straight into
his.

"Ben, Ben, I love you, I _will_ tell you this once, whether it's right
or wrong. I love you, I love you, I love you!" And she flung her arms
round his neck, and drawing down his face to her own covered it with
kisses, hot, passionate kisses in which the future, which for her
stretched away into eternity, was forgotten.

"I must go. Susy, Susy, if you will not have me, in pity's name let me
go!"

"Go then, go, my darling."

She drew herself out of his arms firmly, sadly, and they stood for a
moment looking into each other's eyes, only for a moment though, then
with a long-drawn sigh she turned away and covered her face with her
hands.

He stood a little apart and took a long farewell to all his hopes.
Would the picture ever fade from his mind, he wondered. There it all
lay before him, blue sea and sky and dark bushland, and the only living
thing visible the trembling girl in her simple pink frock, her face
hidden in her hands, and the sunlight bringing out lines of gold in her
fair hair. So it ended--his month-old romance. To-day he must go back to
the old dull routine that makes up the sum of a sailor's life, and this
brief madness must be but a tender memory of the past.

"Susy," he whispered, "Susy," but the