ve since I began to
love you."

"And you do, mate?" she answered--"you do love me, and always will? Oh,
you don't know," she went on, interrupting his answer, "you haven't a
guess, how the last two days have changed me. Something has happened
here"--and she put both her hands over her breast. "I'm all different
here, mate. It's all you inside here--all you! And it hurts, and I'm
proud that it does hurt. Oh!" she cried, of a sudden, "I don't know how
to love yet, and I do it very badly, and I can't tell you how I feel,
because I can't even tell it to myself. But you must be good to me now."
The deep voice trembled a little. "Good to me, mate, and true to me,
mate, because I've only you, and all of me is yours. Mate, be good to
me, and always be kind to me. I'm not Moran any more. I'm not proud and
strong and independent, and I don't want to be lonely. I want you--I
want you always with me. I'm just a woman now, dear--just a woman that
loves you with a heart she's just found."

Wilbur could find no words to answer. There was something so pathetic
and at the same time so noble in Moran's complete surrender of herself,
and her dependence upon him, her unquestioned trust in him and his
goodness, that he was suddenly smitten with awe at the sacredness of the
obligation thus imposed on him. She was his now, to have and to hold,
to keep, to protect, and to defend--she who was once so glorious of her
strength, of her savage isolation, her inviolate, pristine maidenhood.
All words seemed futile and inadequate to him.

She came close to him, and put her hands upon his shoulders, and,
looking him squarely in the eye, said:

"You do love me, mate, and you always will?"

"Always, Moran," said Wilbur, simply. He took her in his arms, and she
laid her cheek against his for a moment, then took his head between her
hands and kissed him.

Two days passed. The "Bertha Millner" held steadily to her northward
course, Moran keeping her well in toward the land. Wilbur maintained a
lookout from the crow's-nest in the hope of sighting some white cruiser
or battleship on her way south for target-practice. In the cache of
provisions he had left for the beach-combers he had inserted a message,
written by Hoang, to the effect that they might expect to be taken off
by a United States man-of-war within the month.

Hoang did not readily recover his "loss of face." The "Bertha's"
Chinamen would have nothing to do with this member of a hostile To