oom, and to strengthen and console myself in
my trouble I sat down to it and played and sang. I sang "Ave Maria
Stella."

I was singing to myself, so I know I began softly--so softly that my
voice must have been a whisper scarcely audible outside the room--

"_Hail thou star of ocean,
Portal of the sky_."

But my heart was full and when I came to the verses which always moved
me most--

"_Virgin of all virgins,
To thy shelter take us_"--

my voice, without my knowing it, may have swelled out into the
breathless night until it reached Martin, where he walked on the dark
headland, and sounded to him like a cry that called him back.

I cannot say. I only know that when with a thickening throat I had come
to an end, and my forehead had fallen on to the key-board, and there was
no other sound in the air but the far-off surging of the sea. I heard
somebody calling me in a soft and tremulous whisper,

"Mary!"

It was he. I went out to the balcony and there he was on the lawn below.
The light of the room was on him and never before had I seen his strong
face so full of agitation.

"Come down," he said. "I have something to say to you."

I could not resist him. He was my master. I had to obey.

When I reached the bottom of the stairway he took my hand, and I did not
know whether it was his hand or mine that was trembling. He led me
across the lawn to the seat in the shrubbery that almost faced my
windows. In the soft and soundless night I could hear his footsteps on
the turf and the rustle of my dress over the grass.

We sat, and for a moment he did not speak. Then with a passionate rush
of words he said:

"Mary, I hadn't meant to say what I'm going to say now, but I can't do
anything else. You are in trouble, and I can't stand by and see you so
ill-used. I can't and I won't!"

I tried to answer him, but my throat was fluttering and I could not
speak.

"It's only a few days before I ought to sail, but they may be enough in
which to do something, and if they're not I'll postpone the expedition
or put it off, or send somebody in my place, for go away I cannot and
leave you like this."

I tried to say that he should not do that whatever happened to me, but
still I could not speak.

"Mary. I want to help you. But I can only do so if you give me the
_right_ to do it. Nobody must tell me I'm a meddler, butting in where I
have no business. There are people enough about you who would be only