ppy, struggling faintly. "I
don't think I can."

"You must," said Fraser, doggedly; "I'm not going to lose you now. It is
no good looking at me like that. It is too late."

He kissed her again, secretly astonished at his own audacity, and the
high-handed way in which he was conducting things. Mixed with his joy
was a half-pang, as he realised that he had lost his fear of Poppy
Tyrell.

"I promised my father," said the girl, presently. "I did not want to get
married, but I did not mind so much Until--"

"Until," Fraser reminded her, fondly.

"Until it began to get near," said the girl; "then I knew."

She took her chair by the fire again, and Fraser, placing his beside
it, they sat hand in hand discussing the future. It was a comprehensive
future, and even included Captain Flower.

"If he should be alive, after all," said Poppy, with unmistakable
firmness, "I shall still marry him if he wishes it."

Fraser assented. "If he should ever turn up again," he said,
deliberately, "I will tell him all about it. But it was his own desire
that I should watch over you if anything happened to him, so he is as
much to blame as I am. If he had lived I should never have said a word
to you. You know that."

"I know," said Poppy, softly.

Her hand trembled in his, and his grasp tightened as though nothing
should loosen it; but some thousands of miles away Captain Flower, from
the deck of a whaler, was anxiously scanning the horizon in search of
the sail which was to convey him back to England.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Time as it rolled on set at rest any doubts Miss Tyrell might have had
concerning the fate of Captain Flower, and under considerable pressure
from Fraser, she had consented to marry him in June. The only real
reason for choosing that month was, that it was close at hand, though
Fraser supplied her with several others to choose from. Their engagement
could hardly have been said to have been announced, for with the
exception of old Mr. Fraser and the crew of the _Swallow_, who had
gleaned the fact for themselves without any undue strain on their
intellects, there was nobody to tell.

The boy was the first to discover it. According to his own indignant
account, he went down to the cabin to see whether there was anything he
could do, and was promptly provided with three weeks' hard labour by
his indignant skipper. A little dissertation in which he indulged in the
forecastle on division of labour met with but scan