"I can scarcely believe you realize your words.
I--I love you Dorothy."

"And is it not also possible for me to love?"

"Possible--yes! But why should you? Forgive me, but I cannot drive
away memory of the gulf between us. I would not dare speak such words
of my own volition, they seem almost insult. You are rich, with
position and friends of influence, while I at best am but a merchant
skipper, in truth a bond servant, penniless and disgraced. In the eyes
of the world I am not fit to touch the hem of your garment."

"Is it the eyes of the world, or my eyes into which you look?"

"Yours! I am selfish enough, I fear, to find my happiness there--but
it is not right, not just."

"Can you not permit me to be the judge as to that?" she asked
seriously. "I know your story, and have seen you in stress and storm.
Am I one, think you, to love any man for wealth or position. If I
possess these things they are to share, not to hoard. It is because I
have given you my full trust and confidence I can say these words."

"You--you mean, you love me?"

Her eyes fell from my face and her head was turned away, but there
was no falter in her voice.

"I love you--are you sorry?"

"Sorry! I am mad with the joy of it; yet stricken dumb. Dorothy!
Dorothy Fairfax, I have never even dared dream of such a message from
your lips. Dear, dear girl, do you forget who I am? What my future
must be?"

"I forget nothing," she said, almost proudly. "It is because I know
what you are that my heart responds. Nor is your future so clouded.
You are today a free man if we escape these perils, for whether Roger
Fairfax be alive, or dead, he will never seek you again to hold in
servitude. If alive he will join his efforts with mine to obtain a
pardon because of these services, and we have influence in England.
Yet, should such effort fail, you are a sailor, and the seas of the
world are free. It is not necessary that your vessel fly the English
flag."

"You give me hope--a wonderful hope."

"And courage," her hands firmly clasping mine. "Courage to fight on in
faith. I would have that my gift to you, Geoffry. We are in peril
still, great peril, but you will face it beside me, knowing that
whether we live or die we are together. I am not afraid anymore."

She was like a child; I could feel her body relax in my arms as though
relieved of its tension. I know I answered her, whispering into her
ear words of love, and confidence, scarcely knowing my