‘I hope I shall, sir,’ she replied; and so they parted. Then the Jamaica packet started.

‘I dare say we shall never see each other again,’ said Morris, as he shook his friend’s hand heartily. ‘One never does. Don’t interfere with the rights of that gentleman in Peru, or he might run a knife into you.’

‘I feel no inclination to injure him on that point.’

‘That’s well; and now good-bye.’ And thus they also were parted. On the following morning the branch ship was dispatched to Mexico; and then, on the afternoon of the third day that for Colon—as we Englishmen call the town on this side of the Isthmus of Panama. Into that vessel Miss Viner and Mr. Forrest moved themselves and their effects; and now that the three-headed Cerberus was gone, she had no longer hesitated in allowing him to do for her all those little things which it is well that men should do for women when they are travelling. A woman without assistance under such circumstances is very forlorn, very apt to go to the wall, very ill able to assert her rights as to accommodation; and I think that few can blame Miss Viner for putting herself and her belongings under the care of the only person who was disposed to be kind to her.

Late in the evening the vessel steamed out of St. Thomas’ harbour, and as she went Ralph Forrest and Emily Viner were standing together at the stern of the boat looking at the retreating lights of the Danish town. If there be a place on the earth’s surface odious to me, it is that little Danish isle to which so many of our young seamen are sent to die,—there being no good cause whatever for such sending. But the question is one which cannot well be argued here.

‘I have five more days of self and liberty left me,’ said Miss Viner. ‘That is my life’s allowance.’

‘For heaven’s sake do not say words that are so horrible.’

‘But am I to lie for heaven’s sake, and say words that are false; or shall I be silent for heaven’s sake, and say nothing during these last hours that are allowed to me for speaking? It is so. To you I can say that it is so, and why should you begrudge me the speech?’

‘I would begrudge you nothing that I could do for you.’

‘No, you should not. Now that my incubus has gone to Barbadoes, let me be free for a day or two. What chance is there, I wonder, that the ship’s machinery should all go wrong, and that we should be tossed about in the seas here for the next six months? I suppose it would be very wicked to wish it?’

‘We should all be starved; that’s all.’

‘What, with a cow on board, and a dozen live sheep, and thousands of cocks and hens! But we are to touch at Santa Martha and Cartagena. What would happen to me if I were to run away at Santa Martha?’

‘I suppose I should be bound to run with you.’

‘Oh, of course. And therefore, as I would not wish to destroy you, I won’t do it. But it would not hurt you much to be shipwrecked, and wait for the next packet.’

‘Miss Viner,’ he said after a pause,—and in the meantime he had drawn nearer to her, too near to her considering all things—‘in the name of all that is good, and true, and womanly, go back to England. With your feelings, if I may judge of them by words which are spoken half in jest—’

‘Mr. Forrest, there is no jest.’

‘With your feelings a poorhouse in England would be better than a palace in Peru.’