attentions so precious to women in their intercourse with men.  “This hand,” she thought, with an exquisite delight in secretly following the idea while he was close to her—­“this hand that has rescued the drowning from death is shifting my pillows so tenderly that I hardly know when they are moved.  This hand that has seized men mad with mutiny, and driven them back to their duty by main force, is mixing my lemonade and peeling my fruit more delicately and more neatly than I could do it for myself.  Oh, if I could be a man, how I should like to be such a man as this!”

She never allowed her thoughts, while she was in his presence, to lead her beyond that point.  It was only when the night had separated them that she ventured to let her mind dwell on the self-sacrificing devotion which had so mercifully rescued her.  Kirke little knew how she thought of him, in the secrecy of her own chamber, during the quiet hours that elapsed before she sank to sleep.  No suspicion crossed his mind of the influence which he was exerting over her—­of the new spirit which he was breathing into that new life, so sensitively open to impression in the first freshness of its recovered sense.  “She has nobody else to amuse her, poor thing,” he used to think, sadly, sitting alone in his small second-floor room.  “If a rough fellow like me can beguile the weary hours till her friends come here, she is heartily welcome to all that I can tell her.”

He was out of spirits and restless now whenever he was by himself.  Little by little he fell into a habit of taking long, lonely walks at night, when Magdalen thought he was sleeping upstairs.  Once he went away abruptly in the day-time—­on business, as he said.  Something had passed between Magdalen and himself the evening before which had led her into telling him her age.  “Twenty last birthday,” he thought.  “Take twenty from forty-one.  An easy sum in subtraction—­as easy a sum as my little nephew could wish for.”  He walked to the Docks, and looked bitterly at the shipping.  “I mustn’t forget how a ship is made,” he said.  “It won’t be long before I am back at the old work again.”  On leaving the Docks he paid a visit to a brother sailor—­a married man.  In the course of conversation he asked how much older his friend might be than his friend’s wife.  There was six years’ difference between them.  “I suppose that’s difference enough?” said Kirke.  “Yes,” said his friend; “quite enough.  Are you looking out for a wife at last?  Try a seasoned woman of thirty-five—­that’s your mark, Kirke, as near as I can calculate.”

The time passed smoothly and quickly—­the present time, in which she was recovering so happily—­the present time, which he was beginning to distrust already.

Early one morning Mr. Merrick surprised Kirke by a visit in his little room on the second floor.