She seemed at once disappointed and relieved. Could it be possible she dreaded a declaration which she had foreseen all along? My evil first experience rose up to warn me. No, I would not speak now; it was no time. If she loved me, it might make her love me less; better to trust to God to spare us both.     

       “Yes, it is all,” I said doggedly.     

       She drew a little nearer, hesitating. It was as though her disappointment had gained on her relief.     

       “Do you know what I thought you were going to say?”      

       “No, indeed.”      

       “Dare I tell you?”      

       “You can trust me.”      

       Her pale lips parted. Her great eyes shone. Another instant, and she had told me that which I would have given all but life itself to know. But in that tick of time a quick step came behind me, and the light went out of the sweet face upturned to mine.     

       “I cannot! I must not! Here is—that man!”      

       Senhor Santos was all smiles and rings of pale-blue smoke.     

       “You will be cut off, friend Cole,” said he. “The fire is spreading.”      

       “Let it spread!” I cried, gazing my very soul into the young girl's eyes.       “We have not finished our conversation.     

       “We have!” said she, with sudden decision. “Go—go—for my sake—for your own sake—go at once!”      

       She gave me her hand. I merely clasped it. And so I left her at the rail—ah, heaven! how often we had argued on that very spot! So I left her, with the greatest effort of all my life (but one); and yet in passing, full as my heart was of love and self, I could not but lay a hand on poor Ready's shoulders.     

       “God bless you, old boy!” I said to him.     

       He turned a white face that gave me half an instant's pause.     

       “It's all over with me this time,” he said. “But, I say, I was right about       

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