"Oh!" cried the girl, "I have no patience with you."
"I am sorry for that, Mary," said Ormond, "for, if I can make a living,
I intend asking you to be my wife."
"Oh!" cried the girl breathlessly, turning her head away.
"Do you think I would have any chance?" asked Ormond.
"Of making a living?" inquired the girl, after a moment's silence.
"No. I am sure of making a living, for I have always done so; therefore answer my question. Mary, do you think I would have any chance?" and he placed his hand softly over hers, which lay on the ship's rail. The girl did not answer, but she did not withdraw her hand; she gazed down at the bright green water with its tinge of foam.
"I suppose you know," she said at length, "that you have every chance, and you are merely pretending ignorance to make it easier for me, because I have simply flung myself at your head ever since we began the voyage."
"I am not pretending, Mary," he said. "What I feared was that your interest was only that of a nurse in a somewhat backward patient. I was afraid I had your sympathy, but not your love. Perhaps such was the case at first."
"Perhaps such was the case—at first, but it is far from being the truth now—Sidney."
The young man made a motion to approach nearer to her, but the girl drew away, whispering—