"Yes," frankly, her face uplifted. "Why should it be otherwise? It has been our fortune to meet under strange conditions, Captain Carlyle—conditions testing us, and revealing the very depths of our natures. Concealment and disguise is no longer necessary between us. You have served me unselfishly, plunging headlong into danger for my sake. I shudder at the thought of where I would be now, but for your effort to save me. No man could have done more, or proved himself more staunch and true. We are in danger yet, adrift here in the heart of this desolate sea, but such peril is nothing compared with what I have escaped. I am glad, sincerely glad; I have prayed God in thankfulness, I feel that your skill and courage will bring us safely to land. I am no longer afraid, for I have learned to trust you."
"In all ways?"
"Yes; as gentleman as truly as sailor. You possess my entire confidence."
Cordial and earnest as these words were, they failed to yield me sufficient courage to voice the eager impulse of my heart. There was a restraint, some memory of the past, perhaps, which fettered the tongue. Yet I struggled to give my desire utterance.
"But do you understand fully?" I questioned anxiously. "All I have done for you would have been done for any other woman under the same conditions of danger. I claim no reward for that—a plain duty."
"I am sure that is true."
"It is true, and yet different. Such service to another would have been a duty, and no more. But to be with you, aiding and protecting, has been a delight, a joy. I have served Dorothy Fairfax for her own sake—not as I would any other."
"Did you not suppose I knew?"
Her glance flashed into mine through the star-gleam, with a sudden message of revealment.
"You knew—that—that it was you personally I served?"