which secretly she was rather proud.


II

"Come up on deck!" whispered Charlie in an eager undertone. "There's no
one there, and the night is divine."

Molly Erie looked at the strange figure in fancy-dress beside her and
laughed aloud. She had not allowed Charlie a _tête-à-tête_ for many
days, but she felt that he could scarcely attempt to be sentimental in
that costume.

She went with him, therefore, thinking what a pretty girl he would have
made.

Charlie led her to the deck-rail. His ridiculous figure was less
obtrusively absurd in the dim light. His laughing voice, lowered
half-confidently, half-reverently, sounded less inconsequent than was
its wont.

Suddenly he turned to her and spoke with wholly unexpected vehemence.

"I can't keep it in," he said. "You've got to know it. Molly, I love you
most awfully. You do know it, I believe, without being told. Why do you
always run away and hide when I try to speak?"

He spoke quickly, jerkily. She glanced at him with a nervous movement as
she drew back. He was not laughing for once, yet she fancied there was
the shadow of a smile quivering about his face. Possibly it was an