tropical twilight faded away by quick degrees in the west, the fringe of
cocoanut palms on the reef that bounded the little island of Boupari
showed out for a minute or two in dark relief, some miles to leeward,
against the pale pink horizon. In spite of the heavy sea, many passengers
lingered late on deck that night to see the last of that coral-girt
shore, which was to be their final glimpse of land till they reached
Honolulu, _en route_ for San Francisco.

Bit by bit, however, the cocoanut palms, silhouetted with their graceful
waving arms for a few brief minutes in black against the glowing
background, merged slowly into the sky or sank below the horizon. All
grew dark. One by one, as the trees disappeared, the passengers dropped
off for whist in the saloon, or retired to the uneasy solitude of their
own state-rooms. At last only two or three men were left smoking and
chatting near the top of the companion ladder; while at the stern of the
ship Muriel Ellis looked over toward the retreating island, and talked
with a certain timid maidenly frankness to Felix Thurstan.

There's nowhere on earth for getting really to know people in a very
short time like the deck of a great Atlantic or Pacific liner. You're
thrown together so much, and all day long, that you see more of your
fellow-passengers' inner life and nature in a few brief weeks than you
would ever be likely to see in a long twelvemonth of ordinary town or
country acquaintanceship. And Muriel Ellis had seen a great deal in those
thirteen days of Felix Thurstan; enough to make sure in her own heart
that she really liked him--well--so much that she looked up with a pretty
blush of self-consciousness every time he approached and lifted his hat
to her. Muriel was an English rector's daughter, from a country village
in Somersetshire; and she was now on her way back from a long year's
visit, to recruit her health, to an aunt in Paramatta. She was travelling