ion that any serious change I might wish to make in my
life should not be done without--well, not consent, exactly, but good
wishes--no, I mean consent. There, that may be putting it clumsily,
but don't you understand?"

Dan flushed. "I have saved lives before," he said; "and twice men have
saved my life, and I never felt,--felt the way you say toward my
rescuers."

"But that is different; it is impossible to compare man's attitude
toward man as you would a woman's."

"Yes, that's so."

"Then you, too, have felt as I feel?"

"No, I never thought of it in that way."

She was silent a moment, but she regarded him searchingly. His face
was upturned, gazing at the flapping sail on the mainmast. She caught
the strong, classic profile in the starlight, and over her flooded the
deep sense of her utter dependence upon him, upon his skill, his
strength, his resource, and the deeper sense of her implicit trust in
him as the embodiment of all these qualities.

She yearned now to express to him her emotions; she almost felt she
must. And yet she hardly knew how. She had tried to do so, but how
inadequate her words had seemed! Bearing in upon her mood, Dan's cool,
even voice sounded miles away.

"Miss Howland, had you thought--"

She interrupted him.

"See here, Daniel Merrithew, I said before that ceremony had no part on
this boat. Hereafter, if you won't call me by my first name you must
address me by my last. It must be either one or the other."

Dan made no comment. He hesitated just a moment, then he said:

"I was going to ask you, Virginia, if you had thought of going to your
cabin yet."

She smiled and blushed.

"I--I wanted to speak to you about that," she said, speaking rapidly.
"I saw you this evening taking things from the Captain's room into the
mate's cabin. Now, if you have any idea that I am going to sleep on
this horrid, grisly boat, so far away from you, you are mistaken. You
must sleep in the Captain's room--and the door leading into mine must
be ajar, too. Oh, I am terribly unmaidenly! I cannot help it; I shall
be horribly forlorn and frightened, and shall hear all sorts of sounds;
I can hear them now, and so can you--"

"But," interrupted Dan, "I cannot go to sleep, Miss--Virginia. This
boat must be sailed to land. There is a breeze. She cannot be left
alone; she would go a hundred miles out of her course; and, besides, we
might meet a vessel."

For a moment the girl gazed a