. A
woman is hemmed in by a thousand petty must-nots. She can't go out
after dark; she can't play whist or billiards, or sit at a table in the
open and drink and smoke and spin yarns. Woman's lot is wondering and
waiting at home. When I marry I suppose that I shall learn the truth
of that."

Perhaps it was because he had been away from them so long and had lost
track of the moods of the feminine mind; but surely it could not be
possible that there was real happiness in this young woman's heart.
Its evidence was lacking in her voice, in her face, in her gestures.
He thought it over with a sigh. It was probably one of those marriages
of convenience, money on one side and social position on the other. He
felt sorry for the girl, sorry for the man; for it was not possible
that a girl like this one would go through life without experiencing
that flash of insanity that is called the grand passion.

He loved her. He could lean against the rail, his shoulder lightly
touching hers, and calmly say to himself that he loved her. He could
calmly permit her to pass out of his life as a cloud passes down the
sea-rim. He hadn't enough, but this evil must befall him. Love! He
spread out his hands unconsciously.

"What does that mean?" she asked, smiling now. "An invocation?"

"It's a sign to ward off evil," he returned.

"From whom?"

"From me."

"Are you expecting evil?"

"I am always preparing myself to meet it. There is one thing that will
always puzzle me. Why should you have asked the purser to pick out
such a tramp as I was? For I was a tramp."

"I thought I explained that."

"Not clearly."

"Well, then, I shall make myself clear. The sight of you upon that
bank, the lights in your face, struck me as the strangest mystery that
could possibly confront me. I thought you were a ghost."

"A ghost?"

"Yes. So I asked the purser to introduce you to prove to my
satisfaction that you weren't a ghost. Line for line, height for
height, color for color, you are the exact counterpart of the man I am
going home to marry."

She saw the shiver that ran over him; she saw his eyes widen; she saw
his hands knot in pressure over the rail.

"The man you are going to marry!" he whispered.

Abruptly, without explanation, he walked away, his shoulders settled,
his head bent. It was her turn to be amazed. What could this attitude
mean?

"Mr. Warrington!" she called.

But he disappeared down the companionway.