Part 158

When the soft dusk had softened the harsh outlines of the little hamlet, and the others were busy with their own affairs and had left Mayo and Polly to themselves, he sat with her on the porch of the widow's cottage, where they spent that first evening after they had been saved from the sea.

There had been a long silence between them. “We have had no opportunity--I have not dared yet to tell you my best hopes for the dearest thing of all,” she ventured.

“The one up inland. I know. I am glad for you.”

“What one up inland?”

“That young man--the only young man in all the world.”

“Oh yes! I had forgotten.”

He stared at her. “Forgotten?”

“Why--why--I don't exactly mean forgotten. But I was not thinking about him when I spoke. I mean that now--with your new prospects--you can go to--to--There may come a time when you can speak to Mr. Marston.”

“I have spoken to Mr. Marston, quite lately. He has spoken to me,” he said, his face hard. “We shall never speak to each other again, if I can have my way.”

He met her astonished gaze. “Polly, I hate to trouble you with my poor affairs of this kind. I can talk of business to Mr. Vose, and of the sea to your father. But there's another matter that I can't mention to anybody--except you will listen. I will tell you where I saw Mr. Marston--and his daughter.”

She listened, her lips apart.

“So, you see,” he said at the end, “it was worse than a dream; it was a mistake. It couldn't have been real love, for it was not built on the right foundation. I have never had much experience with girls. I have been swashing about at sea 'most all my life. Perhaps I don't know what real love is. But it seems to me it can't amount to much unless it is built up on mutual understanding, willingness to sacrifice for each other.”

“I think so,” returned Polly, softly.

“I want to see that young man of yours, up inland. I want to tell him that he is mighty lucky because he met you first.”

“Why?”

“I can't tell you just why. It isn't right for me to do so.”

“But a girl likes to hear such things. Please!”

“Will you forgive me for saying what I shouldn't say?”

“I will forgive you.”

“He's lucky, because if I didn't know you were promised and in love, I'd go down at your feet and beg you to marry me. You're the wife for a Yankee sailor, Polly Candage. If only there were two of you in this world, we'd have a double wedding.”

He leaped up and started away.

“Where are you going?” she asked, and there was almost a wail in her tones. “No, he does not understand girls well,” she told herself, bitterly.

“I'm going down to Rowley's store to see if he will take his money back and let us save interest. He told me I'd have to keep the money for a year.”

She called to him falteringly, but with such appeal in her tones that he halted and stared at her.

“Couldn't you--Isn't it just as well to let the matter rest until--till--”

“Oh, there's no time like the present in money matters,” he declared, with a laugh, wholly oblivious, not in the least understanding her embarrassment, her piteous effort to bar her little temple of love's sacrifice so that he could not trample in just then.

His laugh was a forced one. He realized that if he did not hurry away from this girl he would be reaching out his arms to her, declaring the love that surged in him, now that he had awakened to full consciousness of that love; his Yankee reticence, his instinct of honor between men, were fighting hard against his passion; he told himself that he would not betray a man he did not know, nor proffer love to a girl who, so he believed, loved another.

“May I not go with you?” she pleaded, restraining her wild impulse to run ahead of him and warn the deacon.