“Oh, Arthur, how could you?”

He looked very uncomfortable as he answered—­

“I know that I must seem a dreadful brute to you.  I daresay I am; but, Miss Terry, it would, under all the circumstances, be much more to the point, if you insisted on Mildred’s marrying me.”

“I dare not.  You do not know Mildred.  She would never submit to it from me.”

“Then I must; and, what is more, I will do it now.”

“Thank you, Arthur, thank you.  I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you.”

“There is no need to be grateful to the author of this mischief.”

“And supposing she refuses—­what will you do then?”

“Then I think that I shall go away at once.  Hush! here she comes.”

“Well, Arthur, what are you and Agatha plotting together?  You both look serious enough.”

“Nothing, Mildred—­that is, only another sea-voyage.”

Mildred glanced at him uneasily.  She did not like the tone in his voice.

“I have a bit of bad news for you, Arthur.  That fool, that idiot, Jane”—­and she stamped her little foot upon the pavement—­“has upset the mummy hyacinth-pot and broken the flower off just as it was coming into bloom.  I have given her a quarter’s wages and her passage back to England, and packed her off.”

“Why, Mildred,” remonstrated Miss Terry, “what a fuss to make about a flower!”

She turned on her almost fiercely.

“I had rather have broken my arm, or anything short of my neck, than that she should have broken that flower.  Arthur planted it, and now the clumsy girl has destroyed it,” and Mildred looked as though she were going to cry.

As there was nothing more to be said, Miss Terry went away.  As soon as she was gone, Mildred turned to Arthur and said—­

“You were right, Arthur; we shall never see it bloom in this world.”

“Never mind about the flower, dear; it cannot be helped.  I want to speak to you of something more important.  Miss Terry saw you kiss me last night, and she not unnaturally is anxious to know what it all means.”

“And did you tell her?”

“Yes.”

It was Mildred’s turn to blush now.

“Mildred, you must listen to me.  This cannot go on any more; either you must marry me, or——­”

“Or what?”

“Or I must go away.  At present our whole life is a lie.”

“Do you really wish me to marry you, Arthur?”

“I not only wish it, I think it necessary.”

“Have you nothing more to say than that?”

“Yes, I have to say that I will do my best to make you a good and faithful husband, and that I am sure you will make me a good wife.”

She dropped her face upon her hands and thought.

Just then Miss Terry came hurrying up.

“Oh, Arthur!” she said, “just think, the Roman is in, after all, but all her boats are gone, and they say that half of her passengers and crew are washed overboard; do go down and see about it.”