h that of her lover, who never for
one instant left her side.

"Some day," he said, as they stood together upon the bridge, looking at
the harbour and watching the variety of shipping around them, "this
vessel will be your own property. You will have to invite whoever you
like to stay on board her with you. Do you think you will ever let me
come?" He looked into her face, expecting to find a smile there; but,
to his astonishment, he discovered that her eyes were filled with
tears. "Why, my darling," he cried, "what does this mean? What is the
reason of these tears?"

She brushed them hastily away, and tried to appear unconcerned. "I was
thinking of all your goodness to me," she replied. "Oh, Jack! I don't
know how I can ever repay it."

"I don't want you to repay it," he retorted. "You have done enough
already. Have you not honoured me, dear, above all living men? Are
you not going to be my wife?"

"That is no return," she answered, shaking her head. "If you give a
starving man food, do you think it kind of him to eat it? I had
nothing, and you are giving me all. Does the fact that I take it help
me to repay it?"

What he said in reply to this does not come within the scope of a
chronicler's duty to record. Let it suffice that, when he went below
with her, he might very well have been described as the happiest man in
Japan. The history of the following fortnight could be easily written
in two words, "love and pleasure." From morning till night they were
together, seeing everything, exploring the temples, the country
tea-houses, spending small fortunes with the curio dealers, and
learning to love each other more and more every day. In fact, there
was only one cloud in their sky, and that was the question of what was
to be done with Maas. Up to that time, that gentleman had shown no
sort of inclination to separate himself from the party. Browne could
not very well ask him to leave, and yet he had the best of reasons for
not wanting him to go on with them. What was to be done? He worried
himself almost into a fever to know what he should do. Then, almost at
the last minute, Maas settled the question for them, not in an
altogether unexpected fashion. Finding his host alone in the verandah
of the hotel one evening, he asked outright, without pretence of
beating about the bush, whether he might, as an old friend, continue to
burden them with his society. Browne found himself placed in a most
aw