“What do you mean by that?” He turned squarely and looked down at her.

She hesitated a little, but eventually she told him.

“I thought there would have been a letter for me from Robin at Aden, but there wasn’t.  It has worried me rather.”

“Robin?” he said interrogatively.

“Robin Wentworth, the man I am going to marry,” she explained.  “He has a farm at Bowker Creek, near Rollandstown.  But he will meet me at the docks.  He has promised to do that.  Still, I thought I should have heard from him again.”

“But you will hear at Colombo,” said Mercer.

She raised her eyes—–­ those soft, dark eyes that were her only beauty.

“I may,” she said.

“And if you don’t?”

She smiled faintly.

“I suppose I shall worry some more.”

“Are you sure the fellow is worth it?” asked Mercer unexpectedly.

“We have been engaged for three years,” she said, “though we have been separated.”

He frowned.

“A man can alter a good deal in three years.”

She did not attempt to dispute the point.  It was one of the many doubts that tormented her in moments of depression.

“And what will you do if he doesn’t turn up?” proceeded Mercer.

She gave a sharp shiver.

“Don’t—­don’t frighten me!” she said.

Mercer was silent.  He thrust one hand into his pocket, and absently jingled some coins.  He began to whistle under his breath, and then, awaking to the fact, abruptly stopped himself.

“If I were in your place,” he said at length, “I should get off at Colombo and sail home again on the next boat.”

Sybil shook her head slowly but emphatically.

“I am quite sure you wouldn’t.  For one thing you would be too poor, and for another you would be too proud.”

“Are you very poor?” he asked her point blank.

She nodded.

“And very proud.”

“And your people?”

“Only my father is living, and I have quarrelled with him.”

“Can’t you make it up?”

“No,” she said sharply and emphatically.  “I could never return to my father.  There is no room for me now that he has married again.  I would sooner sell matches at a street corner than go back to what I have left.”

“So that’s it, is it?” said Mercer.  He was looking at her very attentively with his brows drawn down.  “You are not happy at home, so you are plunging into matrimony to get away from it all.”

“We have been engaged for three years,” she protested, flushing.

“You said that before,” he remarked.  “It seems to be your only argument, and a confoundedly shaky one at that.”

She laughed rather unsteadily.

“You are not very encouraging.”

“No,” said Mercer.

He was still looking at her somewhat sternly.  Involuntarily almost she avoided his eyes.