"Surely," said he.
"And you loved me then?"
He nodded, smiling across toward the busy mariners in the rigging of his ship. His memories of those perilous days were fragrant as an English rose-garden.
"Do you know," she whispered, "that, though I felt sure I had made an impression on you then, I began to doubt it later. You were so self-satisfied that you shook my faith in my own powers to charm."
He laughed softly, and with a note of wonder. Then, for a little while, they were silent.
"Tell me," she said, suddenly. "Did you really love me that first day you came to the fort, or was it just—just surprise at seeing a—a civilized girl in so forsaken a place?"
He considered the question gravely and at some length. "I wanted to kill D'Antons," he answered, presently, "and I would gladly have given ten years of my life for a kiss from your lips, a caress from your hands. Was that love, think you?"
"I should call it a right hopeful beginning," she replied, brightly; but tears which she could not explain shone in her eyes. Across the hurrying water drifted the song of the men at work upon the tall masts of the Heart of the West.
"In a week's time," said Kingswell, "she will fill her sails for St. John's—and then for home."