"My pledge," Beauvallet said, and slipped a ring from his finger. "Keep Beauvallet's ring until Beauvallet comes to claim it." She took it, half unwilling. "What need of this?" "No need, but to remind you, maybe. Keep it close." It had his arms engraven upon it, a gold piece, heavy and cunningly wrought. "I will keep it always," she said, "to remind me of--a madman." He smiled. "Oh, not always, sweetheart! A pledge is sometimes redeemed--even by a madman." "Not this one," she said on a sigh, and went out. It seemed to her in the days that followed that Spain drew near all too soon. They had fair weather, and for the most part a favourable wind to bear them home. The Canaries were reached in good time, and Dominica saw adventure's end in sight. She was gentler now with her impetuous wooer, but aloof still, refusing to believe him. She let him teach her English words, and lisped them after him prettily. She forbore to entangle Master Dangerfield in her wiles: time was too short and romance too sweet. Maybe she would have been glad enough, saving only her father's presence, to be borne off to England, a conqueror's prize, but if she had doubted Beauvallet's good faith at first these doubts were soon lulled. He meant certainly to take her to Spain. She had both a sigh and a smile for that, but it is certain that she honoured him for it. For the rest she might not know what to believe. The man talked in a heroic vein, and seemed to be undisturbed by any doubt of his own omnipotence. He would have a poor maid believe him little less than God. Well, one was not so poor a maid as that. Maybe it pleased his strange, braggart fancy to cut a fine figure; surely he would forget just so soon as he set foot on English soil.