“There—­there”—­she murmured, as soothing a child—­“does this convince you?”

But here broke off, her heart contracting with a spasm of wondering tenderness.  For under that pressure of her lips she felt his flesh quiver and start.  She looked up at the handsome bearded face, so close above her, in swift enquiry, the potion—­as once before—­troubling her that, in touching this quaint stigmata, she inflicted bodily suffering.  And, as on that earlier occasion, asked the question: 

“Ah! but have I hurt you?”

Faircloth shook his head, smiling.  Words failed him just then and he went pale beneath the overlay of clear brown sunburn.

“Then tell me what this stands for?” she said, being herself strangely moved, and desirous to lower the temperature of her own emotion—­possibly of his as well.  “Tell me what it means.”

“Just a boy’s fear and a boy’s superstition—­a bit morbid, both of them, perhaps—­that is as I see things now.  For I hold one should leave one’s body as it pleased the Almighty to make it, unblemished by semi-savage decorations which won’t wash off.”

Faircloth moved away, drew his chair up nearer the head of the table, the corner between them, so that his hand could if desire prompted again find hers.

“By the way, I’m so glad you don’t wear ear-rings, Damaris,” he said.  “They belong to the semi-savage order of decoration.  I hate them.  You never will wear them?  Promise me that.”

And she had promised, somewhat diverted by his tone of authority and of insistence.

“But about this?” she asked him, indicating the blue and crimson symbol.

“As I say, fruit of fear and superstition—­a pretty pair in which to put one’s faith!  All the same, they went far to save my life, I fancy—­for which I thank them mightily being here, with you, to-day.”

And he told her—­softening the uglier details, as unfit for a gently-nurtured woman’s hearing—­a brutal story of the sea.  Of a sailing ship becalmed in tropic waters, waiting, through long blistering days and breathless sweltering nights, for the breeze which wouldn’t come—­a floating hell, between glaring skies and glaring ocean—­and of bullyings, indignities and torments devised by a brain diseased by drink.

“But was there no one to interfere, no one to protect you?” Damaris cried, aghast.

“A man’s master in his own ship,” Faircloth answered.  “And short of mutiny there’s no redress.  Neither officers nor men had a stomach for mutiny.  They were a poor, cowed lot.  Till this drunken madness came on him he had been easy going enough.  They supposed, when it passed, he’d be so again.  And then as he reserved his special attentions for me, they were willing to grin and bear it—­or rather let me bear it, just stupidly letting things go.  It was my first long voyage.  I’d been lucky in my skippers so far, and was a bit soft still.  A bit conceited, I don’t doubt, as well.  He swore he’d break my spirit—­for my own good, of course—­and he came near succeeding.—­But Damaris, Damaris, dear, don’t take it to heart so.  What does it matter?  It did me no lasting harm, and was all over and done with—­would have been forgotten too, but for the rather silly sign of it—­years and years ago.  Let us talk no more about it.”