“No, miss,” said the steward, humbly.  “I’ve ’ad a lesson.  I’ll never try and Shanghai anybody else agin as long as I live.”

After this virtuous sentiment he sat and smoked placidly, with occasional curious glances divided between his two visitors.  An idle and ridiculous idea, which occurred to him in connection with them, was dismissed at once as too preposterous for a sensible steward to entertain.

“Mrs. Kingdom well?” he inquired.

“Quite well,” said the girl.  “If you take me home, Sam, you shall see her, and be forgiven by her, too.”

“Thankee, miss,” said the gratified steward.

“And what about your foot, Wilks?” said Hardy, somewhat taken aback by this arrangement.

“Foot, sir?” said the unconscious Mr. Wilks; “wot foot?”

“Why, the bad one,” said Hardy, with a significant glance.

“Ho, that one?” said Mr. Wilks, beating time and waiting further revelations.

“Do you think you ought to use it much?” inquired Hardy.

Mr. Wilks looked at it, or, to be more exact, looked at both of them, and smiled weakly.  His previous idea recurred to him with renewed force now, and several things in the young man’s behaviour, hitherto disregarded, became suddenly charged with significance.  Miss Nugent looked on with an air of cynical interest.

“Better not run any risk,” said Hardy, gravely.  “I shall be very pleased to see Miss Nugent home, if she will allow me.”

“What is the matter with it?” inquired Miss Nugent, looking him full in the face.

Hardy hesitated.  Diplomacy, he told himself, was one thing; lying another.  He passed the question on to the rather badly used Mr. Wilks.

“Matter with it?” repeated that gentleman, glaring at him reproachfully.  “It’s got shootin’ pains right up it.  I suppose it was walking miles and miles every day in London, looking for the cap’n, was too much for it.”

“Is it too bad for you to take me home, Sam?” inquired Miss Nugent, softly.

The perturbed Mr. Wilks looked from one to the other.  As a sportsman his sympathies were with Hardy, but his duty lay with the girl.

“I’ll do my best, miss,” he said; and got up and limped, very well indeed for a first attempt, round the room.

Then Miss Nugent did a thing which was a puzzle to herself for some time afterwards.  Having won the victory she deliberately threw away the fruits of it, and declining to allow the steward to run any risks, accepted Hardy’s escort home.  Mr. Wilks watched them from the door, and with his head in a whirl caused by the night’s proceedings mixed himself a stiff glass of grog to set it right, and drank to the health of both of them.

[Illustration:  “Mr. Wilks drank to the health of both of them.”]

The wind had abated somewhat in violence as they walked home, and, moreover, they had their backs to it.  The walk was slower and more enjoyable in many respects than the walk out.  In an unusually soft mood she replied to his remarks and stole little critical glances up at him.  When they reached the house she stood a little while at the gate gazing at the starry sky and listening to the crash of the sea on the beach.