'I feel that it is some sorrow, some wrong done you in your early life,
that makes you so bitter against the world,' she said. 'You think ill of
all because one or two have been unkind and unjust, perhaps. Because
someone has been false or unfair to you at home there, you are cold and
contemptuous and distrustful of the people around you here, who are eager
to be your friends.' Her tone was almost caressing.

For answer he caught her up in his arms, using his strength roughly,
cruelly, clasping her to his breast, and kissing her mouth twice, thrice,
with a fierce rapture. A moment he held her thus, gazing into her face,
and the girl's hands seemed to flutter up to his neck. Suddenly she
experienced an awakening. On the heels of the new joy came a new terror.
Setting her palms against his breast, she pushed herself from his relaxed
arms. A few feet of deck, a space of cold moonlight, divided them, and
they stood thus, facing each other in silence. Lucy had an intuitive
expectancy; the situation called for an avowal. It became awkward. A
boyish shamefacedness had followed Done's outburst of passion, and he
spoke never a word. The two were victims of a painful anti-climax. A girl
has but one resource in such an emergency. The tears came, and Lucy
Woodrow turned and stole away, leaving Jim stunned, abashed, with
unseeing eyes bent upon the sea. Done's right hand was striking at the
woodwork mechanically; his mind was in a turmoil. The blows increased in
force till blood ran from his knuckles, and then through his clenched
teeth came the bitter words. His rage against himself had a biting
vindictiveness. He cursed in whispers.

What a fool he had been! What a fatuous, blundering ass! What had he
done? Why had he done it? Was he in love, with Lucy Woodrow? This latter
question recurred again and again through the night, and the answer came