“It’s not that—–­”

“Please!  Please!  Be a real prince and grant me this boon.  Won’t you?  My heart is set upon it.”

It was hard to resist her imploring eyes—­eyes which showed they had never been denied.  It was hard for O’Neil to refuse anything to a woman.

“If your uncle is willing,” he began, hesitatingly.

“He isn’t my really uncle—­I just call him that.”

“Well, if Mr. Gordon wouldn’t object, perhaps I can manage it, provided, of course, you promise to explain to your mother.”

Miss Gerard’s frank delight showed that she was indeed no more than a child.  Her changed demeanor awakened a doubt in the man’s mind.

“It will mean that you’ll have to sit up all night in an open launch,” he cautioned her.

“I’ll sit up for a week.”

“With the creepy water all about, and big black mountains frowning at you!”

“Oh, fiddle!” she exclaimed.  “You’ll be there if I get frightened.”  Rising impulsively she laid her hand on his arm and thanked him with an odd mingling of frankness and shyness, as if there could be no further doubt of his acquiescence.  He saw that her eyes were the color of shaded woodland springs and that her hair was not black, but of a deep, rich brown where the sun played upon it, the hue of very old mahogany, with the same blood-red flame running through it.  He allowed himself to admire her in silence, until suddenly she drew back with a startled exclamation.

“What is it?”

“I forgot—­I have no clothes.”  Her words came with a doleful cadence.

“The universal complaint of your sex,” he said, smiling.  “Allow me to talk with your hostess.  I’m sure she will let you walk out with your borrowed finery, just like Cinderella.  You’ll need a nice thick coat, too.”

“But this is her very, very best dress.”

“She shall receive, on the next ship, a big box all lined with tissue-paper, with the imprint of the most fashionable dressmaker in Seattle.  I’ll arrange all that by cable.”

“You don’t know how she loves it,” the girl said, doubtfully.

“Come!  Call her in.  If I’m to be a prince you mustn’t doubt my power.”

Nor did the event prove him over-confident.  Before he had fairly made known his request the good lady of the house was ready to surrender not only her best Sunday gown, but her fluttering heart as well.  Murray O’Neil had a way of making people do what he wanted, and women invariably yielded to him.

IV

HOW A JOURNEY ENDED AT HOPE

To Natalie Gerard the trip down the bay and into the sound that night was a wonderful adventure.  She remembered it afterward far more vividly than the shipwreck, which became blurred in retrospect, so that she soon began to think of it as of some half-forgotten nightmare.  To begin with, the personality of Murray O’Neil intrigued her more and more.  The man was so strong, so sympathetic, and he had such a resistless way of doing things.  The stories she had heard of him were romantic, and the superintendent’s wife had not allowed them to suffer in the telling.  Natalie felt elated that such a remarkable person should exert himself on her behalf.  And the journey itself impressed her imagination deeply.