“Tired, pet?”

“No,” she murmured, “oh, no!”

“What, then?”

“Only happy—­perfectly happy.”

“Same here,” he said, careless how he tempted Fate—­“only more so.”

Their lips met, and were holding that sweetest kiss of lovers that are man and wife, when a wave, driven by the wind, flung a shower of spray at them, giving each a playful slap of the face as a hint not to be too confident.

“Hadn’t you better get inside?” he urged, as he wiped her cheek.

“It’ll be rougher still directly.”  “Oh, no, it’s splendid!  The rougher the better.  I’m so glad it’s rough.  I can’t take any harm, so well wrapped up, and with you, my husband.”

“Ah, Lil!” The hug he gave her in acknowledgment of the word made her gasp for breath.  He was so carried away that he had to use both arms, whereby a lurch of the boat nearly unseated him.  “Never,” he declared, in an intense whisper—­“never shall you come to harm, my precious one, while you’ve got me to protect you; I can promise you that.”

“Dear,” she returned, in the same kind of tone, “I know I never shall.”

And she cuddled closer up to him, and he took a firmer grip of her.  There was no rail for either to hold to, and drawing out from the shelter of the pier, and meeting the force of the southerly swell, the launch had begun to dance like a cork on boiling water.

“Why, there’s quite a sea on,” remarked Guthrie, with a laugh.  “I hope it won’t make you sea-sick.”

“Sea-sick!” she echoed, with fine scorn.  “I am a sailor’s wife, sir.”

“Bless your little heart, I’ve been sea-sick myself many a time, and for not much more than this, either.  However, it’ll soon be over.  There’s home waiting for us, Lil—­”

“Where?  Where?” she interrupted him, with a tender eagerness.  The launch was tossed high in the air, and the lights of Williamstown stretched across the darkness in front of them like a band of jewels.

“Oh, you can’t distinguish it,” said Guthrie, “but it’s there—­it’s one of those lights; Mrs Hardacre said she was going to keep the blind up and the gas flaring, so that we might see it as we came over.”

“That’s what I shall do when you come back next time,” said the girl, with a voice like a dove cooing.  “Make a beacon to guide you home.”

“No fear that I shall mistake the course, little woman.”

He had an irresistible impulse to hug her with both arms again, and they happened to be on the verge of the river current.  Hardacre and Finlayson both shouted, “Look out, sir!” but he was not looking out—­ his sailor eyes were otherwise occupied, and so he did not perceive the enemy of love making the spring to seize him.  Just as he was folding his mate to his breast, he heard the warning cry for’ard, and it was then too late to avert the catastrophe.  In the same instant a sudden wave struck the launch, and nearly turned her over, and the young wife and husband, holding to nothing but one another, and simply sitting upon an unprotected plank, were tipped out as easily as balls from a capsized basket.