e unselfish and
enthusiastic. 'I do not deny that there is truth in what you say.'

'It is true.'

'Of course I love you.'

'It ought to be of course,--now.'

'And of course I do not mean to part from you now, as though we were
never to see each other again.'

'I hope not quite that.'

'Certainly not. I shall therefore hold you as engaged to me, and myself
as engaged to you,--unless something should occur to separate us.' It
was a foolish thing to say, but he did not know how to speak without
being foolish. It is not usual that a gentleman should ask a lady to be
engaged to him '--unless something should occur to separate them!' 'You
will consent to that,' he said.

'What I will consent to is this, that I will be yours, all yours,
whenever you may choose to send for me. At any moment I will be your
wife for the asking. But you shall go away first, and shall think of it,
and reflect upon it,--so that I may not have to reproach myself with
having caught you.'

'Caught me?'

'Well, yes, caught you. I do feel that I have caught you,--almost. I do
feel,--almost,--that I ought to have had nothing to do with you. From
the beginning of it all I knew that I ought to have nothing to say to
you. You are too good for me.' Then she rose from her place as though to
leave him. 'I will go down now,' she said, 'because I know you will have
many things to do. To-morrow, when we get up, we shall be in the
harbour, and you will be on shore quite early. There will be no time for
a word of farewell then. I will meet you again here just before we go to
bed,--say at half-past ten. Then we will arrange, if we can arrange, how
we may meet again.'

And so she glided away from him, and he was left alone, sitting on the
spar. Now, at any rate, he had engaged himself. There could not be any
doubt about that. He certainly could not be justified in regarding
himself as free because she had told him that she would give him time to
think of it. Of course he was engaged to marry her. When a man has been
successful in his wooing he is supposed to be happy. He asked himself
whether he was proud of the result of this intimacy. She had told
him,--she herself,--that she had 'caught him', meaning thereby that he
had been taken as a rabbit with a snare or a fish with a baited hook. If
it had been so, surely she would not herself have said so. And yet he
was aware how common it is for a delinquent to cover his own delinquency
by declaring it. 'Of c