“Mistress Lucy,� said I, “I want but one thing in this world. No money, no jewels could buy that, nor all the treasure we left behind upon that island.�
“But if one should give you that,� she said very softly, her eyes on the table and her white hand lifting the stones and letting them fall.
“I am not worthy—to receive it,� said I.
“And so,� she said, without looking at me, “and so it is good-by then. May you be happy.�
She extended her hand to me and I caught it and kissed it passionately, but when I made to let it go she would not.
“Master Hampdon,� she said, looking at me, her eyes brighter than the diamonds and bluer than the sapphires upon the table, “you are a fool.�
“Right well I know that, Mistress,� said I, striving to fetch a smile to match her own.
“And a blind man as well.�
Whereat I was a blind man, indeed, for my eyes misted up, but not with blood as in the battle. And I, as strong and tough as a mountain ash, was as like to faint as any lovesick girl.
“John, John,� came the sweetest voice on earth to me through the darkness, “don’t you see? Don’t you know that I love you and you only, that you have all my heart and that my life, which is yours a thousand times on sea and shore, is not worth living without you?�