She held out her hand to him with a curious gesture of appeal, “Captain Monck, if I come with you—­”

His fingers closed about her own.  “If?” he said.

She made a rather piteous attempt to laugh.  “Really I don’t want to,” she said.

“Really?” said Monck.  He drew a little nearer to her, still holding her hand.  His grasp was firm and strong.  “Really?” he said again.

She stood in silence, for she could not give him any answer.

He waited for a moment or two; then, “Stella,” he said, “are you afraid of me?”

She shook her head.  Her lips had begun to tremble inexplicably.  “No—­no,” she said.

“What then?” He spoke with a gentleness that she had never heard from him before.  “Of yourself?”

She turned her face away from him.  “I am afraid—­of life,” she told him brokenly.  “It is like a great Wheel—­a vast machinery.  I have been caught in it once—­caught and crushed.  Oh can’t you understand?”

“Yes,” he said.

Again for a space he was silent, his hand yet holding hers.  There was subtle comfort in his grasp.  It held protection.

“And so you want to run away from it?” he said at length.  “Do you think that’s going to help you?”

She choked back a sob.  “I don’t know.  I have no judgment.  I don’t trust myself.”

“You believe in sincerity?” he said.  “In being true to yourself?” Then, as she winced, “No, I don’t want to go over old ground.  We are talking of present things.  I’m not going to pester you, not going to ask you to marry me even—­” again she was aware of his smile though his speech sounded grim—­“until you have honestly answered the question that you are trying to shirk.  Perhaps you won’t thank me for reminding you a second time of a conversation that you and I once had on this very spot, but I must.  I told you that I had been waiting for my turn.  And you told me that I had come—­too late.”

He paused, but she did not speak.  She was trembling from head to foot.

He leaned towards her.  “Stella, I’m not such a fool as to make the same mistake twice over.  I’m not going to miss my turn a second time.  I loved you then—­though I had never flattered myself that I had a chance.  And my love isn’t the kind that burns and goes out.”  His voice suddenly quivered.  “I don’t know whether you have any use for it.  You have been too discreet and cautious to betray yourself.  Your heart has been a closed book to me.  But to-night—­I am going to open that book.  I have the right, and you can’t deny it to me.  If you were queen of the whole earth I should still have the right, because I love you, to ask you—­as I ask you now—­have you any love for me?  There!  I have done it.  If you can tell me honestly that I am nothing to you, that is the end.  But if not—­if not—­” again she heard a deep vibration in his voice—­“then don’t be afraid—­in the name of Heaven!  Marriage with me would not mean slavery.”