She gave a light laugh. "It seems to me that you are talking; therefore I repeat my question."
"It might only have been gratitude," he murmured.
"For what?"
"Berring--I mean your husband--saved her from being trampled upon by a mustang."
"How picturesque, and how suited to Jim's qualifications! And she----?"
"No, she didn't," interrupted Askew, hurriedly. "I see I have been mistaken. It was gratitude, not love."
"Of course," said Lady Jim, jeeringly; "a woman always prefers to exercise the former rather than the latter."
"I wish I'd stopped and tried my luck," muttered the sailor, not clever enough to interpret this speech.
"It's not too late. Mr. Berring is safely secured, by love and the law, to my apron-strings, so you can go back and----"
"No; I've just come in for a property of sorts, and the service has seen the last of me."