Towards midnight the Hailoong slipped into port. There were few about and no guests in the rotunda or corridors of the hotel to whom it was necessary for Mr. MacAllister to introduce the young men by whom he was accompanied.
In the reunion which followed Mrs. MacAllister forgot for the time her opposition to the friendship between her daughter and Sinclair. Her gratitude for his rescue of her son was deep and sincere. With all the warmth of her Highland nature she thanked him, till he blushed painfully and showed an embarrassment under praise which he had never manifested in the most trying moments of the ridicule he had suffered when they were first acquainted.
The next day passed like a dream to Sinclair. Father and mother were constantly with their long-lost son. Sinclair and Miss MacAllister were left much to themselves. In some way during those seven months of separation they had grown acquainted with one another. That sacred and never-to-be-forgotten hour in which they had confessed their love had found them almost strangers. It had been as one kneels to a sovereign that he had knelt before her and gave her hand the kiss of homage. It was with the grave reverence of a sacred rite that he had sealed their vows of love by pressing his lips to hers.
But that was in the past now. Seven months had slowly worn away; seven months in which thoughts had been busy. And ever in the background of those thoughts was the fact that they loved each other, and had confessed their love, and neither had shrunk from the other nor repelled a caress. The passion, the abandon of love had grown during those months of waiting. It knew that it would not be refused.
"Oh, Donald, I have been so weary for you, so lonesome and weary! I have dreamed of you out there under the rains, among the wounded, and facing the bullets.... Donald, I'm ashamed. I know that it wasn't brave. But I couldn't help it. Often and often I cried myself to sleep."
Her face was tear-wet now as he lifted it to his. But it was smiling through its tears.
"Jessie, it was the thought of you which kept me up. It was because of you that I stayed at work. If it hadn't been for you, I might have given up before the end came.... I might not have been there when Allister fell."
She shuddered at the thought and pressed closer to him. But Allister was safe, and the suggestion of what might have been now only served as a stimulus to her love for the man to whom she had given her heart before he had done that which was to bind her to him by gratitude as well as by love.
But her mother was not yet ready to give up her project of marrying her daughter to the Earl of Lewesthorpe. He was still the suitor she had accepted, if her daughter had not. She realized very clearly that her daughter had no more inclination towards him than when they came to Hong-Kong. Indeed, it was the other way. On more than one occasion her aversion to him had been so manifest as to cause comment. But Mrs. MacAllister had resolved to have her own way and gain her ambition. Not even gratitude to Dr. Sinclair for his inestimable service could bend her will.
If because she was grateful she had allowed him some liberty that day without her watchful presence, she had intended that evening to make it perfectly plain that Lord Lewesthorpe was the only one who would be countenanced as an aspirant for her hand. With her love for social events, and a touch of the melodramatic, she had invited a very few very select friends for the evening. Most of them did not know that she had a son. None save those who had accompanied him from Formosa knew that her son was in Hong-Kong.