"Molly, I would ask you to marry me, but I know we wouldn't be happy very long."
He felt her take her cheek away as though he had startled her. Presently, when she spoke, her voice was more gentle than he had ever known it.
"You are a good fellow; but it don't make any difference, nor make me think other of what I know. You have come to the end of me, and it is only because you are a good fellow that you talk of marriage. There's no need to worry over what has gone by. Kisses don't last long after they are kissed, and a girl wouldn't come to much harm with such as you." She laughed again. "Fancy me the wife of the boss of Kaloona. Mum and dad have been rowing me about it since the start. You are a good fellow to come here with a long face and talk about marriage, but you always was a bit soft and none the worse for that."
While she was speaking the breeze wore out in a final timid flutter, and the heat returned to the night, and then, while he sat there acknowledging with a certain grim humour her words left him unmoved, he felt her nestle against him.
"I would not marry you if you wanted, but I will give you a kiss instead, for I know you are a straight fellow, and that is not forgetting what has happened with you and Miss Neville. Come, Mister, look this way."
He bent his head and they kissed where the beam of light clove the dark, and it seemed to him there was less passion and more fondness in that kiss than in all the kisses they had kissed before. Presently he took his lips from hers, and she laid her head upon his shoulder.
"What has made you so kind to-night, Molly?"
He was forgotten again. She was looking into the dark as though her sight pierced it and regarded something beyond. He could see only the outline of her head; but in imagination he looked into her eyes which were sleepy with dreams. A flutter of wind sprang up again in the South—a flash of light opened and shut the heavens—there followed a row-de-dow of thunder. The sudden commotion no whit disturbed her; but a moment after she was speaking.
"Mister, I've got a queer feeling. It won't let me be. Something is going to happen." She shivered again. "Do you reckon there are things that come and go, and we can't see them?"
"No, silly child. We have behaved badly to you. We left you alone all day, and your little brain, which was not meant for hard thinking, has been run away with by big thoughts. Come, we still have our talk to finish. We are to tell the truth to-night, and the time has come for you to choose one of us. Whisper me the name.... Molly, I am waiting for it.... Molly.... Then I shall have to tell you. Mick is the name that tangles up your tongue."