ded, really more interested in the sprightly hoyden
he was talking to than in the subject of their conversation. "I see," he
said. "If that's the way you figure it out, I shall be aware of Mr.
Travers Nugent when I meet him at the club. If he's a dark horse he
might rook me at billiards or bridge. I am obliged to you for this
warning, Miss Mallory. You have probably saved an unsophisticated
sailor from premature ruin and a suicide's grave."

Enid glanced up at him, her eyes dancing with mischief. "Bother Mr.
Nugent!" she exclaimed. "Now that you have addressed me with proper
respect, you may call me Pussy again if you wish--till you misbehave
again."

So for the next half-hour they reverted to earlier nomenclature, and
forgot to play at quarrelling as they wandered up and down by the summer
sea. And when at length they parted, Enid to go home to pour out tea for
her blind mother, and Reggie to enter the club, they lightly made an
appointment which was to have its grim bearing on the tale that has yet
to be told.

"Look here, Miss Mallory," said the Lieutenant, with feigned solemnity.
"I have to go into Exeter to-morrow to try on some new uniforms, and
to-night I must stay at home and help the mater entertain a wretched
curate whom she has invited to dinner. But I shall be at large to-morrow
evening. What about a prowl along the shore or up the marsh? We might
renew hostilities, and get some sort of a notion which of us is really
right in the matter of our Christian names. I may change my mind, and
come to the conclusion that you are, after all."

"Oh, may you, indeed, Reggie?" replied the girl, and with a roguish
laugh she ran away without saying whether or no she would meet him. But
he was familiar with his former playmate's impish ways, and it was in
sublime confidence that the appointment would be kept that he loitered
about on the seafront on the evening of the following day.

Sure enough, a little after nine, when the sunset glow still lingered in
the western sky, Miss Enid's white-clad figure was seen threading its
way through the loungers on the parade. It was a beautiful evening, and
the junior section of residents and visitors were about in plenty. Young
men and maidens, hatless and in evening dress, strolled up and down the
asphalte side-walk between the coastguard station and the club, for
the most part chattering of the handicaps in the forthcoming tennis
tournament, while some few exceptions, too busy