“Lucia, it is you then?  I thought you would not be able to stay below.”

“No.  It is so hot.  Here the night is lovely.”

“The deck is tolerably clear now.  Come and walk up and down a little—­unless you are tired?”

“I am tired, but to walk will rest me.”

As she turned he took her hand and put it through his arm.  For a minute they were silent.

“Two days ago, Lucia,” Maurice said “I thought this was an impossibility.”

“What!”

“Our being together—­as we are now.”

“Did you?  But you had promised to come if ever we were in trouble.”

“Yes.  And I meant to keep my word.  But I fancied you would never send for me.”

“You see,” Lucia said, trying to speak lightly, “that we had no other friend to send for.”

“Is that so?  Was that the only reason?”

“Maurice!”

“Tell me something, Lucia.  Did you mean the last sentence of your note?”

“What was it?”

“You said you were unhappy.”

“Oh! yes, I was. So unhappy—­I was thinking of it just now.”

“And at present?  Are you unhappy still?”

“You know I am not.”

“I have been miserable, too, lately.  Horribly miserable.  I was ready to do I can’t tell you what absurdities.  Until your note came.”

He stopped a moment, but she had nothing to say.

“It is a great comfort to have got so far,” he went on, “but I suppose one is never satisfied.  Now that I am not quite miserable, I should like to be quite happy.”

Lucia could not help laughing, though she did so a little nervously.

“Don’t be unreasonable,” she said.

“But I am.  I must needs put it to the touch again.  Lucia, you know what I want to say; can’t you forget the past, and come home to Hunsdon and be my wife?”

They stood still side by side, in the starry darkness and neither of them knew very well for a few minutes what they said.  Only Maurice understood that the object of his life was gained; and Lucia felt that from henceforth, for ever, she would never be perverse, or passionate, or wilful again, for Maurice had forgiven her, and loved her still.

They never noticed that the boat was delayed beyond its time, and that other passengers chafed at the delay.  They stayed on deck in the starlight, and said little to each other, but they both felt that a new life had begun—­a life which seemed to be grafted on the old one before their troubles, and to have nothing to do with this last year.  When Maurice was about to say good-night at the cabin door, he made the first allusion to what had brought them together.

“I shall pension Bailey,” he said.  “His last good deed blots out all his misdoings.”

“What good deed?”

“Frightening you.”

“He did not frighten me.”

“Frightening Mrs. Costello then.  It comes to the same thing in the end.  But why did not you send for your cousin, Mr. Wynter?”