ses from Port Arthur lay
off the shore, and the yellow flag at her mast fluttered gently in the
cool evening breeze. The sight of this flag appeared to anger him, for,
as his eyes fell on it, he uttered an impatient exclamation, and turned
round again.

"Maurice!" she cried, "I have wounded you!"

"No, no. It is nothing," said he, with the air of a man surprised in
a moment of weakness. "I--I did not like to hear you talk in this
way--about not loving me."

"Oh, forgive me, dear; I did not mean to hurt you. It is my silly way of
saying more than I mean. How could I do otherwise than love you--after
all you have done?"

Some sudden desperate whim caused him to exclaim, "But suppose I had not
done all you think, would you not love me still?"

Her eyes, raised to his face with anxious tenderness for the pain she
had believed herself to have inflicted, fell at this speech.

"What a question! I don't know. I suppose I should; yet--but what is the
use, Maurice, of supposing? I know you have done it, and that is enough.
How can I say what I might have done if something else had happened?
Why, you might not have loved me."

If there had been for a moment any sentiment of remorse in his selfish
heart, the hesitation of her answer went far to dispel it.

"To be sure, that's true," and he placed his arm round her.

She lifted her face again with a bright laugh.

"We are a pair of geese--supposing! How can we help what has past? We
have the Future, darling--the Future, in which I am to be your little
wife, and we are to love each other all our lives, like the people in
the story-books."

Temptation to evil had often come to Maurice Frere, and his selfish
nature had succumbed to it when in far less witching shape than this
fair and innocent child luring him with wistful eyes to win her. What
hopes had he not built upon her love; what good resolutions had he not
made by reason of the purity and goodness she was to bring to him? As
she said, the past was beyond recall; the future--in which she was
to love him all her life--was before them. With the hypocrisy of
selfishness which deceives even itself, he laid the little head upon his
heart with a sensible glow of virtue.

"God bless you, darling! You are my Good Angel."

The girl sighed. "I will be your Good Angel, dear, if you will let me."

CHAPTER VI. MR. MEEKIN ADMINISTERS CONSOLATION.

Rex told Mr. Meekin, who, the next day, did him the honour to visit