“Mary!” exclaimed the young man joyfully.
“Robin Greve,” cried the girl, “do you mean to tell me you’d stand there thinking I’d accept money made like that ...”
But now she was in his arms. With a little fluttering sigh she yielded to his kiss.
“Oh, the man on the bridge!...” she murmured with her woman’s instinct for the conventions.
“Come behind the boat, then!” commanded Robin.
And in the shadow of a weather-stained davit he kissed her again.
“So you’ll wait for me, after all, Mary?”
“No,” retorted the girl firmly. “We’ll read the Riot Act to Mother and you must marry me at once!”
The wind blew cold from the North Sea. It rattled in the rigging, flapped the ensign standing out stiffly at the stern, and whirled the black smoke from the steamer’s funnels out into a dark aerial wake as far as the eye could reach. With a gentle rhythmic motion the vessel rose and fell, while the stars began to pale and faint grey shadows appeared in the eastern sky. Still the man and the girl stood by the swaying lifeboat and talked the things that lovers say. Step by step they went over their thoughts for one another in each successive phase of the dark tragedy through which they had passed.
“And that van der Spyck letter,” asked Robin; “how did you get hold of it? I’ve been wanting to ask you that ever since this afternoon ...”