more than a six-weeks' separation."

"Six weeks!" she protested, piteously.

"Perhaps less," he said. "I may be able to come to you for a day or two
in the middle. Say you will go--and stay, sweetheart! Set my mind at
rest!"

"But, darling, you may be ill. A thousand things may happen. And I
couldn't go back to Shamkura. I couldn't!" said Puck, almost crying,
clinging fast around his neck.

"But why not?" he questioned, gently. "Weren't they kind to you there?
Weren't you happy?"

She clung faster. "Happy, Billikins! With that hateful Captain Silvester
lying in wait to--to make love to me! I didn't tell you before. But
that--that was why I left."

He frowned above her head. "You ought to have told me before, Puck."

She trembled in his arms. "It didn't seem to matter when once I'd got
away; and I knew it would only make you cross."

"How did he make love to you?" demanded Merryon.

He tried to see her face, but she hid it resolutely against him. "Don't,
Billikins! It doesn't matter now."

"It does matter," he said, sternly.