ing?'

Jim had recovered himself. He felt cold, sobered. He shook the hands off
him, 'Your inclinations count for everything!' he said with composure. 'I
acted on impulse. I beg your pardon, Aurora. I'll apologize to Carrol if
he wishes it. I've had too much rum, Tim; I acted like a fool.'

'Tush, man, 'twas nothin'! You didn't hit me,' said the Irishman
cheerfully. 'Don't shpake iv it. I disarved what I didn't get fer kissin'
your sweet, heart, any-how.'

Aurora's anger fell from her suddenly, and she moved away. She played no
more that night, and was markedly subdued in her manner, turning an
anxious eye upon Done every now and again, and Jim, to carry off the
situation, was much too free with the liquor and uncommonly friendly with
everybody.

'You took my temper like a gentleman, Jimmy dear,' said Aurora, coming
behind him when he sat alone. She was bidding for reconciliation.

'I ought to have known better, Joy,' he answered. I was an idiot!'

'No, dear, you were jealous, and that is an easy thing for a woman to
forgive.'

'I don't think I was even jealous.'

'Then you should have been!' she said, with a flash of anger.

'Then, if I should have been, I was jealous--furiously, murderously
jealous!'

'Sure, how could you blame the poor boy,' she murmured, winding an arm
about his neck, 'wid the love of the dear ould sod hot in the heart iv
him? 'Twasn't a lover's kiss he gave me, darlin', but a patriot's.'

'This is a lover's, Joy!' He kissed her softly.

All the same, flushed with liquor though he was, he was conscious that
his attack on Carrol had been prompted by a meaner impulse than jealousy,
and was more a manifestation of the rum-flown arrogance of a man fighting
for a prize in the possession of which he felt a large conceit. He was
conscious, too, that there was little of a true lover's ardour in the
kiss he gave her. But men are deceivers ever, and never so cunning in
deceit as when love has slipped from their hearts. To be sure, Jim had
the grace to be ashamed of all this in certain moods, but acknowledgment
of the sin was not followed by renunciation. Aurora's flash of passion
was probably due to the instinct that warned her of the fading of Done's
love for her.

Mike took his mate home that night, and had to help him into his bunk,
and Jim awoke in the morning with feelings of mistrust and bitterness, a
craven consciousness of having been untrue to him self. For a moment
there was a belief