It was the voice he had longed to hear for many days. And it rang with an added charm in his delighted ears. He had turned on the instant, and stood smiling down into eyes that had never ceased from their haunting.
He shook his head.
"If you'll believe me I wasn't wasting time," he said. "I came out here for a very definite purpose. I've done the thing I hoped. Do you know I guessed I'd have to sail to-morrow without seeing you again?"
Nancy's eyes sobered. And without their smile Bull thought he detected a cloud of trouble in them.
"I didn't know you were sailing to-morrow," she said. "It's just a chance I couldn't help that let me meet you now."
"You mean you avoided me—deliberately?"
Bull's smile had passed. But there was no umbrage in his manner. The girl's appeal for him was never so great as at that moment. She had never been more beautiful to him. He had first seen her in that same long fur coat, and had gazed into her pretty eyes under the same fur cap. He was glad she was so clad now. To his mind no other costume could have so much charm for him.
"Yes."
The simple downrightness of the admission might have disconcerted another. But its honesty and lack of subterfuge only pleased the man.
"That's what I thought. It's this business standing between your folk and me?"